Booher's Rules of Business Grammar - Dianna Booher 2009

No death knell for the hyphen
Miscellaneous matters

HYPHENS BEFORE RELATED ADJECTIVES

You’re walking along the sidewalk with friends, trying to select a restaurant for dinner in an unfamiliar city. Outside the door of one particular café, a sign says: “No smoking area available.”

“How about this place for dinner?” your colleague asks.

“Won’t work. Snuffy smokes. That sign says they don’t have a smoking area available,” you respond.

“I read it to mean just the opposite,” your colleague argues and catches a waiter to clarify.

So which is it?

1. Is smoking not allowed anywhere in the restaurant?

2. Is smoking allowed, but the restaurant has an area for nonsmokers?

The hyphen in such terms is missing so often that our eyes are trained to compensate for its absence. And for those who read literally and know from the context that such phrases could not be correct, the missing hyphen can cost a contract, halt a promotion, or end a relationship. For those who don’t know the difference, they guess—with the same consequences.

Answer to the restaurant quandary:

No smoking area available. (With no hyphen, the sign means the entire restaurant is smoke-free. Snuffy cannot smoke there at all.)

No-smoking area available. (With this sign displayed, a restaurant allows smoking, but also has a smoke-free area.)

So what are a restaurant and a guy like Snuffy to do? Learn the four hyphen rules to avoid confusion:

Hyphenate two related adjectives before a noun.

The boss attended a two-day workshop.

Kilpatrick advertises himself as a high-caliber motivational speaker.

We follow a 10-year cycle for equipment replacement.

Buy your over-the-counter medicines at a nearby pharmacy.

That station is known for up-to-the-minute reporting.

We navigated the snow-covered roads to the airport.

Do not hyphenate related adjectives when they follow the noun (unless they are in altered or inverted form).

The workshop lasted two days.

Kilpatrick advertises himself as a motivational speaker of high caliber.

These medicines are available over the counter, without prescription.

Percival outlined his approach to investing in annuities that are tax-exempt. (inverted order—tax-exempt annuities is the typical order)

Do not hyphenate related adjectives that precede a noun if the phrase is so well known that it’s immediately recognizable and clear as a unit.

The rental car agency is liable for the damage.

The income tax form will be mailed to your home address.

Do not hyphenate adverb-adjective combinations that precede a noun if the adverb ends in —ly: selfishly arrogant, modestly rich, highly knowledgeable.

Memory tip

Related adjectives, like family members, work as a unit. So link them.