Chicken-fried Grammar

Although I've personally been quite clear about the animal origin of chicken-fried steak since at least age 23, there are plenty of other facts that have escaped my notice until more recently.

But after Thursday's post, it occurs to me that chicken-fried steak (a badly named dish indeed) is still causing some confusion. And it has everything to do with the importance of the hyphen. Even restaurants that keep impeccable kitchens can be quite sloppy when it comes to hyphenating the compound adjectives on their menus. So, I figured a quick grammar lesson was in order.

A compound adjective is comprised of two adjectives working together to describe a noun. The fact that chicken-fried steak is steak rather than chicken is revealed in the construction of the phrase. Steak comes last, and it's being described by "chicken-fried." By the same logic, you know that a chicken-salad sandwich is a sandwich. If you read "chicken salad sandwich," you might assume it was a list of three different things and that someone forgot to include the commas. (Menus are known to do that as well.)

Here are a few parallel examples to "chicken-fried steak" that will help cement this fact:

Chicken-fried steak
Steak that has been fried like chicken. The steak is breaded and fried the same way fried chicken is breaded and fried, and its typically served with mashed potatoes and gravy. Bring on the heart disease! (And don't even get me started on "chicken-fried chicken." There's one too many "chickens" in that phrase.)

Chocolate-covered strawberries
Strawberries that have been covered in chocolate.

Citrus-glazed salmon
Salmon that has been glazed with citrus.

Man-eating shark
A shark that eats humans.

In the above examples, if there were no hyphen to designate the compound adjective, the phrases could be read as poorly constructed sentences:

Man eating shark. Man eating eel. Man getting indigestion.

Chicken fried steak. And then steak got its revenge with a fire poker.

Chocolate covered strawberry. And rock covered paper. But strawberry tasted better.

Does that help?

:-)

Comments

[Erin]

LOL! This is too funny. Thanks!

[Jennifer Larson]

I vaguely remember using the Chicago Manual of style in an editing course at college--seriously, the rules on hyphens were about 14 pages long. You explained it very nicely. And briefer. Kudos for out-Chicago-ing the CMS!

[Deb G.]

Thanks for this. As a proofreader for an ad agency, I've tried, with little success, to explain such things to our designers. Reminds me of Lynne Truss's tome, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves."

[Stefani Meyer]

Ahhhhhhahaha! I love it when we have a grammar lesson! Especially the part about the fire poker! :D

[Hannah Means]

Oh, I LOVE your grammar lessons! So funny and instructive! Thanks!

[Laura]

LOL...love it! Especially since a few months ago I mistakenly ended up with tuna on a salad instead of a tuna salad sandwich thanks to a poorly written menu. :-(

[Liz Oram]

What totally gets me is chicken-fried chicken, but different from the fried chicken we all know and love from KFC. HAHA

[Kelli]

Ahhh...thank you! I needed the info and the laugh! You're so awesome!

[elizabeth]

Gosh, you're funny. : )

[Donna J.]

But chicken-fried chicken is so good!