A ten-foot hole?

[Toby Frost]

A man would be six feet tall rather than six foot tall, although I often hear "six foot tall" used instead.

But is it right to say "a ten-foot hole had been torn in the hedge"?

 

[Vertigo]

My understanding of this is that in "a ten-foot hole" the "ten-foot" is used as an adjective and as such only takes the singular form. So you can have:

"The man is sex feet tall" - feet is a plural noun
and
"The ten-foot tall man" - ten-foot is an adjective

maybe...

 

[Toby Frost]

"The man is sex feet tall"

Sir, that is not the sort of book I am writing!

 

[Ursa major]

"The man is sex feet tall"

There's no answer to that....

 

[The Judge]

"The man is sex feet tall"

I've heard of someone being sex on legs, but this guy I really want to meet!

Ahem.

Back to the original question, it is acceptable to say "six foot tall" and no need for the hyphen to make it a compound adjective. Per Collins online:

In front of another noun, the plural for the unit of length is foot: a 20-foot putt; his 70-foot ketch. Foot can also be used instead of feet when mentioning a quantity and in front of words like tall: four foot of snow; he is at least six foot tall

I think I'd use "foot" instead of "feet" mostly in direct speech or close POV, though, and avoid it in narrative. So although "a ten-foot hole" passes the in-front-of-another-noun rule, I'd probably reword it to "a hole ten feet long had been torn in the hedge" if that's narrative description.

 

[Vertigo]

Whoops and on a family friendly site as well!

 

[TheDustyZebra]

A man would be six feet tall rather than six foot tall, although I often hear "six foot tall" used instead.

But is it right to say "a ten-foot hole had been torn in the hedge"?

Right, he's six feet tall, but he's a six-foot man, or a six-foot-tall man. Your hedge hole is six feet long, but it's a six-foot hole or a six-foot-long hole. Can I see the sexy-footed man through it?

 

[Gonk the Insane]

And was he dragged through the hedge forwards or backwards?

 

[The Ace]

A 6-book series (Please!).