# Is there any rhyme or reason as to when words should be hyphenated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 13, 2012, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616 "2012-09-13T18:14:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/21 "2012-09-14T17:45:03Z")
> [@Michael63129](#): > > Alot? Was that intentional? If you can explain why alot should be wrong, I’ll listen. (I get the irony part. A lot.) ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/22 "2012-09-14T18:03:01Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Challenge: > > It was a cloud free, breezy, cool day. Are you arguing that “free, breezy, cool day” has the same meaning as “cloud-free, breezy, cool day”? ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/23 "2012-09-14T18:07:23Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > Are you arguing that “free, breezy, cool day” has the same meaning as “cloud-free, breezy, cool day”? No, just saying the process described doesn’t work perfectly. It’s a teaching tool only. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/24 "2012-09-14T18:21:32Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > “Now-a-days” strikes me as very old-fashioned (or old fashioned? 🙂 ), like “to-day” and “to-morrow”. I’d write it as one word. > > The general progress in English seems to be two words -\> hyphenated word -\> one word. Whether computer grammar checkers will halt or reverse that trend remains to be seen. I was going to post something bizarrely similar to this. There was a famous-at-the-time publishing program in the late 1920s called the To-day and To-morrow series. More than 100 books about the future and the series title makes them seem older than Newton. It goes along with using apostrophes in places we find hard to imagine, like 'phone or 'cab. We’re in the middle of many hyphen removals, but I think the biggest one, because of the election, is that toss-up states is moving to tossup states, although you can still find toss up states. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/25 "2012-09-14T18:29:35Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > No, just saying the process described doesn’t work perfectly. It’s a teaching tool only. In what way does your example show that it doesn’t work? It produces an ungrammatical and/or meaning-changed result which shows where to hyphenate. Also, I never said it was anything but a suggested method of teaching the concept. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/26 "2012-09-14T20:01:39Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > My wife says that two (or more) word adjectives should be hyphenated when they precede the noun they modify, but not when used as predicate adjectives. So: “A two-word phrase has two words”. (Also notice how it got inflected for number at the same time.) That’s what the AP Style Manual says. (At least it did 10 years ago, when I was using it.) (Oh god I’m old.) –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/27 "2012-09-14T20:36:47Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I find it hard to read and nonsensical as a single word since it’s a phrase. I could be wrong. I’m not recommending a rule for particular words, just the principal that grammar should be used for clarity, not a game of adhering to pointless rules. I will reconsider my use of hyphens in that case though. \*Nowadays \*used to be a phrase, in Middle English. Now it is a word. So is _heretofore_, and bunch of others. I have also seen \*cellphone \*rendered as a single word in newspaper articles. The rules aren’t pointless, although some people espouse rules that have expired or were never rules to begin with (like ending a sentence with a preposition). (BTW it’s “principle” in that usage.) ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/28 "2012-09-14T20:49:38Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > If you can explain why alot should be wrong, I’ll listen. > > (I get the irony part. A lot.) Why do you think it’s right? Do you thing that “alittle” is a word? Or “afew”? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/29 "2012-09-14T21:52:53Z")
My rule is simple: avoid hyphens as much as possible, use only when absolutely necessary (e.g. to distinguish _fast sailing ship_ from _fast-sailing ship_, because the phrase “sailing ship” means a particular kind of ship, whereas different kinds of ships in general can be sailing as a verb). If there’s no ambiguity, either space it or close it up . Overuse of hyphens is annoying. If you look at texts from 200 years ago with hyphenations like “to-day” or “New-York,” isn’t it strange and jarring? Well, all unnecessary hyphens look like that to me. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/30 "2012-09-14T23:06:48Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Why do you think it’s right? Do you thing that “alittle” is a word? Or “afew”? “Alot” is not a word because the predominant usage is “a lot”. There’s really no logical reason it _shouldn’t_ be a word, it just isn’t. Reasoning by analogy doesn’t work all that well with word usage. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616/31 "2012-09-14T23:21:38Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > If you can explain why alot should be wrong, I’ll listen. > > (I get the irony part. A lot.) Because the original meaning of the separate words still exists in the meaning of the combined word. The word is even divisible, i.e., you can say “a whole lot.” These two aspects are generally enough to keep words orthographically separate. And, no, “a whole lot” does not have the same derivation as [expletive infixations](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive_infixation) such as “abso-fucking-lutely,” so don’t even bother going down that road. I like Tripolar, cringe when I see nevertheless or nowadays or passersby, as they seem to combine things in a way atypical of how English makes compound words, but I do type them that way. And hyphens are important any time the adjective describes the adjective. I don’t care if you can work it out afterwards–it takes longer. I do, however, allow myself to use quotes instead of hyphens when using phrases as a word–it’s just easier. E.g. “This is one of those ‘you can’t figure out what’s going on’ days,” rather than the more proper “This is one of those you-can’t-figure-out-what’s-going-on days.” Oh, and it’s not so much irony as hypocrisy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-rhyme-or-reason-as-to-when-words-should-be-hyphenated/634616.md?page=1)