Dreyer's English - Benjamin Dreyer 2022

Hyphens
56 assorted things to do (and not to do) with punctuation
The stuff in the front

44.

If you turn to page 719 in your Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, eleventh edition, you will find, one atop the other:

light-headed

lighthearted

Which tells you pretty much everything you want to know about the use of hyphens, which is to say: It doesn’t make much sense, does it.

If you type “lightheaded” (I note that my spellcheck dots have not popped up) or “light-hearted,” the hyphen police are surely not going to come after you, and I won’t even notice, but:

If you’re invested in getting your hyphens correctly sorted out in compound adjectives, verbs, and nouns, and you like being told what to do, just pick up your dictionary and look ’em up. Those listings are correct.

45.

That said, you will find—if you’ve a penchant for noticing these things—that compounds have a tendency, over time, to spit out unnecessary hyphens and close themselves up. Over the course of my career I’ve seen “light bulb” evolve into “light-bulb” and then into “lightbulb,” “baby-sit” give way to “babysit,” and—a big one—“Web site” turn into “Web-site,” then, happily, “website.”

46.

However, convention (aka tradition, aka consensus, aka it’s simply how it’s done, so don’t argue with it) allows for exceptions in some cases in which a misreading is unlikely, as in, say:

real estate agent

high school students

Generally—yes, exceptions apart, there are always exceptions—you use a hyphen or hyphens in these before-the-noun (there goes another one) adjectival cases to avoid that momentary unnecessary hesitation we’re always trying to spare our readers.

Consider the difference between, say, “a man eating shark” and “a man-eating shark,” where the hyphen is crucial in clarifying who is eating whom, and “a cat related drama,” which could mean that a cat told a riveting story, and “a cat-related drama,” which is what you meant in the first place.

So as we navigate these migraine-inducing points of trivia, impossible-to-understand differentiations, and inconsistently applied rules, do you wonder why, though I hyphenated “migraine-inducing” and “impossible-to-understand,” I left “inconsistently applied” open?

Because compounds formed from an “-ly” adverb and an adjective or participle do not take a hyphen:

inconsistently applied rules

maddeningly irregular punctuation

beautifully arranged sentences

Why?

Because the possibility of misreading is slim to nil, so a hyphen is unnecessary.

Or, if you prefer a simpler explanation:

Because.^*16

47.

Modern style is to merge prefixes and main words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) seamlessly and hyphenlessly, as in:

antiwar

autocorrect

codependent

extracurricular

hyperactive

interdepartmental

nonnative

outfight

reelect

subpar

I’d suggest that you follow this streamlined style.

But: If you find any given hyphenated compound incomprehensible or too hideous to stand (antiinflammatory, antieducational), it’s OK to hold on to that hyphen. Remember, your goal is to make yourself understood. And the dictionary can help out when you just can’t decide.

48.

There are some exceptions.

Aren’t there always?

To recreate is to enjoy recreation, but to create something anew is to re-create it. And you may reform a naughty child, but if you are taking that child literally apart and putting it back together, you are re-forming it. You may quit your after-school job by resigning, but a contract, once signed, can certainly be re-signed.

49.

The age of people’s children trips up a lot of people with children.

My daughter is six years old.

My six-year-old daughter is off to summer camp.

My daughter, a six-year-old, is off to summer camp.

You’ll often encounter “a six-year old girl” or, though it would be correct only in a discussion of sextuplets who have just celebrated their first birthday, “six year-olds.” Please get it right.