Gramer girl here, I'm in Yon Fogarty and this week I have a quick and dirty tip about

whether things are king size or king sized.

A meaty middle about when it's okay to be redundant and it tidbit about the phrase mind

your pees and queues.

Last week in the sponsor message you heard me talk about a king size mattress from Casper.

And that reminded me that a listener named Louis had asked me whether he should write

about small and mid-size businesses or small and mid-sized businesses.

The short answer is that the better choice is size, not sized, king size and mid-size.

Although some dictionaries list king sized and mid-sized as alternatives.

And as is often the case with hyphens, the answer about them isn't as clear.

King size usually appears hyphenated, but mid-size is routinely seen with and without

a hyphen.

And some dictionaries show it hyphenated and others don't.

So hyphenate king size.

And just decide which way you like to write mid-size and put it in your style guide and

then be consistent.

Madman fans will likely be a surprise and intrigued as I was to discover that although the Oxford

English dictionary has one example of king size from the early 1800s, it looks as if the

term only took hold once it appeared in regent cigarette ads in the early 1940s.

King size regent cigarettes fixed the term king size in our modern vocabulary.

Mattress makers expanded the regal universe to include queen size in the late 1950s.

Models for mid-size cars may have also helped establish that term in American English,

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