Hi everyone.

I hope I've posted this in the correct forum, apologies if not.

I'd like to check if the hyphens are used correctly in the following phrases, and I'd appreciate an explanation if possible.

The GF coating’s high film-build in one coat enhances its abrasion resistance while providing fabrication suitability. 

Its resistance to sagging at high-film thickness was also desirable for the manufacturing process of the wind turbines.

Many thanks
Jack

Hi Jack.

"high-film thickness" is right: "high" and "film" are working together as a single adjective to describe the kind of thickness, so they get hyphenated.

"The GF coating’s high film-build in one coat enhances its abrasion resistance while providing fabrication suitability. "

I'm a bit more puzzled by this, because I don't understand it (and I spend two days a week working with academic subjects I don't understand, so I'm used to deconstructing these things).It doesn't help that "high" isn't always a helpful metaphor to use for "lots of", when the physical context isn't about height.

Is it that several films are built into one coat? If so, "high film-build" is right.

Or is it that some stuff called "high-film" is built into one coat? In which case it should be "high-film build".

Apologies for putting my writing-teacher hat on for a moment... but this kind of sentence is an example of how complicated things get when you start using nouns jammed together as adjectives, because in car-crashes of nouns there are no extra words to tell us how these nouns relate to each other: high film build; abrasion resistance (the resitance of abrasion to something? the resistance to abrasion?), fabrication suitability (that something's suitable to be fabricated? that the fabric is suitable for something?) It's a habit that's come to us from German writing, essentially, by way of American writing. But German have word-endings to express how words relate to each other, and English doesn't, so it just gets confused and confusing.
Edited by EmmaD at 12:00:00 on 06 April 2014

Hi Emma

What a great answer! I'm now clear on both phrases and you were correct in your response to this phrase:

Is it that several films are built into one coat? If so, "high film-build" is right.

Thanks also for the further explanation and the alternative phrase, much appreciated. I have to follow their corporate style already set, so there are some awkward phrases as you've qite rightly pointed out.

And please keep the 'writing-teacher hat' on – it's extremely useful to people with little brains like me. :-)

Thanks once again.

Kind regards
Jack

You're welcome, Jack. 

Corporate style ... yes... hm... You might find some of this blogpost useful:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2013/05/twenty-top-tips-for-academic-writing.html

It's more about academic writing, but there isn't a great difference between the two jobs. About 2/3rds of the way down that post there's a section on car-crash nouns. I had fun writing a super-ghastly sentence for it...

Hi Emma

I didn't realise I was being helped by someone so famous!

Thanks for the link and once again for all your help.

Many thanks

Jack