I am going to make up four sentences with them below.
- These old different-colored (or different color) pencil crayons are very rare and valuable.
- The different-colored (or different color) designs of these purses were created by a very famous designer two years ago.
- The different-sized (or different size) dolls available in the discount section of the store have the same price tag.
- The different-sized (or different size) stainless steel pots are made to satisfy different people's cooking need.
In my sentences, can I use both forms, with and without "ed", interchangeably?
Best Answer
Google can sometimes come in handy when we are undecided which noun phrase to choose from.
I searched using the British English spelling colour(ed) and the American English variant i.e. color(ed). I opted for hair because that seemed to give the best results.
881,000 results for "different color" hair
This looks to be the winner, but if we search through Google Books we find that the noun phrase is often split
So lets force Google Books to give us results for "different color hair" closed in quotes
Google books produced the following usages of "different colored hair"
Summary
As far as different color (pencil crayons) vs different coloured (pencil crayons) is concerned, either form is acceptable. I would use the hyphen because the adjectives old and different color(ed) modify pencil crayons which is made up of two nouns, if the adjectives were only two I might leave well alone. Compare
IMO, the best way to write different + size in sentence 4 is different-sized, with a hyphen and the suffix -ed, as it helps readers to understand the text more easily. But i suppose you could argue it is only a stylistic reason, not a grammatical exigence.
(det + adj + adj + adj + noun + noun)