Is there a rule concerning when a compound word or words should be hyphenated? I’m sure that if there is such a rule, there are a myriad of exceptions. Anyway, I’m tired of going to the dictionary to see if the word is hyphenated or not, and there seems to me no rhyme or reason for hyphenation. For example, postoperative has no hyphen, but post-mortem does. (I guess if you’re still alive, you’re not hyphenated.)
note that the root word “operative” begins with a vowel, while the prefix “post” ends with a consonant.
Meanwhile, “mortem” begins with a consonant.
Se non e vero, e ben trovato.
Spritle
I think mainly it depends what century you are living in.
If you’re in the twentieth century, don’t use hyphens.
If you’re in the nineteenth, hyphenate everything.
Like T. Herman Zweibel.
I don’t think anyone has written “New-York” with the hyphen since the beginning of the 20th century. But it was once standard spelling.
The hyphenated form is a remnant of our Germanic language elements, first in the Anglo-Saxons, and again in the US with all the Germanic people in Pennsylvania, Delaware, etc.
But even in Germany, the official position is to break up those enless combination words.
Next to commas, hyphens have the least rigid rules in modern English.
The general rule is that compound adjectives are hyphenated. Some of the confusing interpretations of this are as follows:[ul][li]A prefix does not a compound adject make.[/li]In the examples above, post is a true prefix, so it doesn’t necessarily require hyphenation. But some editors might feel that a word with the prefix post doesn’t look like a real word, so they might choose to hyphenate it. This is the editor’s prerogative.
[li]Serial adjectives do not a compound adjective make.[/li]Phrases such as The big, red wound gaped invitingly require no hyphenation. [As an aside, these phrases are often over-comma’ed, as well: The stooped old man winked lasciviously is correct, but more and more I’ve seen it as The stooped, old man . . .)
[li]An adverb does not a compound adjective make.[/li]In the example sentence, “The corpse had a truly scrumptious ripeness,” truly scrumptious is not a compound adjective because truly is an adverb modifying scrumptious. You’ll almost never see this type of construction with a hyphen, except when the editor is a monkey.
[li]. . . except for the adverb “well.”[/li]As an editor, I happen to disagree with this one, but some editors treat the adverb well as if it were not an adverb, and will blithely hyphenate thus: “The well-chewed gristle went down like warm lard.” This is their prerogative.
[li]Hyphens are almost always at the discretion of the editor.[/li]When I was working full time as an editor (now I do freelance ms. work), I looked to Occam for guidance: Eschew hyphens unless necessary for clarity.
If the compound adjective was familiar to most readers as a compound adjective (long distance), I would generally dispense with the hyphen.
If the compound adjective did not precede the modified noun, there was rarely cause for confusion (the eggplant-purple bruises as opposed to the bruises were eggplant purple), I would usually dispense with the hyphen.
This was my prerogative.
[/ul]
My guiding principal as an editor has always been, “When in doubt, leave it out.”
It’s a good question. From a personal standpoint, I think that a lot of usage is pointless. I know in MS Word it constantly recommends using one between two words when it’s really not needed.
However, there are times when you should definitely use it, such as when the word requires it. It drives me nuts when I see
cooperation
what the hell is COUPE-erh-ay-tion?
It’s only valid as co-operation.
As word doesn’t even point this error out!
FWIW, this is not true; Wooba just made that up. Reading it as “COUPE- . . .” is a failure on the reader’s part, not the writer’s: this word has been written as cooperation long enough to offer no real chance of confusion if written correctly. Insisting on a hyphen is to insist that in order to be correct, English must be spelled phonetically, which we all know is bunk.
Some, more old fashioned, editors might spell it with a diacritical (coöperation), but this has largely fallen into disuse as well.
I agree with lissener’s views. The Chicago Manual of Style pretty much formed my views on the subject. They advise using a hyphen only when necessary to avoid ambiguity. Example: A fast sailing ship looks like ‘a sailing ship that goes fast’. If you mean ‘a ship that happens to be sailing fast’, write A fast-sailing ship.
But this dehyphened mode is the up to the minute American style. Try visiting some former British colonies (like Malaysia, where I once freelanced as a copy editor). They got hyphens out the butt over there! Every pre-fix you can imagine gets its own hyphen. To us, T. Herman Zweibel is just a broad parody, but for them it’s actually normal. Every week while copy editing I had to haul out several trash bins of deleted hyphens.
And don’t even get me started on their capitalization of Common Nouns.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by lissener *
**
FWIW, this is not true; Wooba just made that up.
I certainly didn’t make this up. I spent several years of my life in the British schooling system. It was taught as co-operation and I don’t recall ever seeing it as cooperation until I came to North America. I am quite sure that if you were to hand in an essay there using cooperation you would lose marks, just as you would for using “color” instead of “colour”
I also think for the sake of people without perfect English skills, using a hypen in this word makes sense and gives a little extra clarity.
Sorry, wooba.
Didn’t know it was a standard Anglicism. It’s been unhyphenated in American English for long enough you’d probably get it handed back to you in an American school–along, of course, with colour and aluminium.
As far as including a hyphen to make things easier for nongrammarians, I’d venture to say that the practice of avoiding unnecessary hyphens would tend to make things simpler. A page slashed and dashed to little bits by hyphens would, I imagine, be more daunting to a neophyte Anglophone than one whose flow was uninterrupted by grammatical arcana.
The best list of what words are hyphenated, which are solid, and which are two words can be found in the General Printing Office (GPO) style manual. I’ve yet to find anywhere else that actually has a list.
Generally, most hyphenated words are gradualing losing their hyphens, except in cases where the lack of one can make things unclear (such as un-ionized vs. unionized).
Thanks to all for the elucidation, esp. Lissener. His rules are helpful, and I like the coinage of “over-comma’ed,” making a verb out of a noun and, on top of that, making it hyphenated! 'Ataway.
Oh, by the way, Wooba, I suppose in England “coworker” is also hyphenated. I alway want to hyphenate it because it looks like cow orker.
. . . which would really be confusing for those of us who make a practice out of orking cows.