The importance of the hyphen
Stein I. Krav
the significance of the hyphen? Consider these words
as an example:
slave driver
slave-driver
slavedriver
Any difference or all OK?
'Samme hvor du g}r, der er du' - Buckaroo Banzai
Stein - s...@cs.uow.edu.au
he...@qut.edu.au
> Does anoyone volenteer to give me some information on
> the significance of the hyphen? Consider these words
> as an example:
>
> slave driver
> slave-driver
> slavedriver
>
> Any difference or all OK?
In "The Reader Over your Shoulder" Robert Graves and
Alan Hodge make a distinction between a
child photographer and a
child-photographer.
The first is a child who works as a photographer, the
second a photographer of children. They also speak of
the difference between a
large-black pig and a
large black pig.
The first is a pig of a specific breed, the second a
pig which happens to be large and black.
It is a distinction worth making, but I rarely see it
made.
Incidently, I think the book is an excellent guide to
writing. It gives a functional definition of bad
writing -- as writing which interrupts the smooth flow
of a reader. So it is not so much a prescriptive book
as a call for precision and clarity.
Take care
Ronno
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For dreams and reason, against authority and untested beliefs.
Jon Franklin Steeves
noun phrase, such as "think tank," is used as an adjective a hyphen
should be inserted: for example, "I can't stand that think-tank mentality."
Does anyone know if this rule is considered "correct"?
Jon Steeves
Charles Geyer
(Jon Franklin Steeves) writes:
Yes. It is correct, though, since it adds clarity, it goes against
the modern tendency toward complete obfuscation. For that reason it
should not be used if one is trying to impress MBA's.
--
Charles Geyer
School of Statistics
University of Minnesota
cha...@umnstat.stat.umn.edu
Stan Brown
> I remember reading somewhere, I don't remember where, that when a
> noun phrase, such as "think tank," is used as an adjective a hyphen
> should be inserted: for example, "I can't stand that think-tank mentality."
> Does anyone know if this rule is considered "correct"?
Not just noun phrases used as adjectives, but two-word adjectives (like
"two-word") when used before the nouns they modify.
Fowler says, under "hyphens 3.", "Composite adjectives when used
attributively [i.e. before the noun they modify] are usually given
hyphens, mostly with good reason. They may be adjective+adjective
(red-hot, dark-blue) or noun+adjective (pitch-dark, sky-high), or
adective_participle (easy-going, nice-mannered), or noun+participle
([load-bearing], battle-scarred), or verb+adverb (mad-up, fly-over), or
phrases such as door-to-door, up-to-date. ...
"When the first word of the compound is an adverb no hyphen is
ordinarily needed, though one may often be found there. It is the
business of an adverb to qualify the word next to it; there should be no
risk of misunderstanding. ... But this will have to be done when the
adverb might be mistaken for an adjective. 'A litte used car' is not
the same as 'a little-used car'. ... In 'pretty fair guess' on the other
hand, 'pretty' is unmistakably an adverb and the reader does not need
the guidance of a hyphen. ...
"It is true that combinations of two or more words needing hyphens
when used attributively can usually do without them as predicates. 'An
ill educated man' is ambiguous but 'the man is ill educated' is not. We
must write 'up-to-date figures, a balance-of-payments crisis'. ... But
the hyphens would be worse than useless in 'The figures are up to date,
a crisis over the balance of payments'. ...
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cleveland, Ohio, USA br...@ncoast.org
"Philip," she said, "it's one thing to count your chickens before
they're hatched, but do wait until the rooster's in the mood."
he...@qut.edu.au
Alan Hodge say:
The hyphen is used to link words which, if separated,
might possibly have some other meaning than the one
intended, or confuse the reader's eye.
The following is an example of an obvious lack of
hyphens, from an American antique-dealers' journel:
`High prices are still payed for pre-Christian Selzer
Pennsylvania Dutch chests, if painted in flowers in the
_fractur_ style.'
These were not pre-Christian Dutch chests. Christian
Selzer was a late-eighteenth-centuary painter of
chests, fire-boards and such-like for the `Dutch', or
Germans, of Pennsylvania. The sentence should therefore
have run:
`High prices are still payed for pre-Christian-Selzer
Pennsylvania-Dutch chests, if painted in flowers in the
_fractur_ style.'
The accidental omission or insertion of a hyphen often
makes nonsense of a passage:
`In the Southern States, slave-owners of property were
expected to give their masters a proportion of the
yield.'
Here `slave-owners' should be `slave owners' --- i.e.
slaves who were owners of property.
`A child photographer yesterday celebrated his silver
wedding at Herne Bay: he was mr John Tulse, one of the
first to specialize in the use of gauze filters.'
Mr Tulse was a child-photographer.
Adjectives should not be joined to their nouns with
hyphens except in such special cases as blue-book,
large-black pig, French-polisher, small-sword --- where
to omit the hyphen would be to endanger the sense.
Take care
Ronno
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For dreams and reason, against authority and beliefs.
Robert A Rosenberg
New compound words look ugly. I don't like all of them either. But
There they are. I was merely noting a tendency in English, not
propounding rules. Cf. the Manual (Chicago) under Compound Words,
General Principles (6.16 in the 12th ed).
Robert A Rosenberg
meaning of all three variants (slave driver, slave-driver, slavedriver) is
the same, but the general trend (if the word is used a lot) will be to
make it one word, like lawnmower, lightbulb, and a kazillion others.
Compound adjectives, on the other hand, often need hyphenation to avoid
confusion. General rule (if you don't have a Chicago Manual of Style around,
which would repay perusal if you've never seen it) is that if it is hard
to separate compound adjectives from adverbs, other adjectives, or the
modified noun, hyphenate (or rewrite the sentence).
Cameron Smith
ros...@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu (Robert A Rosenberg) writes:
>Hyphenation and then consolidation is the general rule for English. The
>meaning of all three variants (slave driver, slave-driver, slavedriver) is
>the same, but the general trend (if the word is used a lot) will be to
You mean "lawn mower" and "light bulb"?
Are there actually people who write those as single blobs (er, words)?
In that case, why not say "if the word is used alot"?
I wouldn't like this even if we wrote them as "lawnMower" and "lightBulb". :-)
--Cameron Smith, orthographic reactionary
cam...@symcom.math.uiuc.edu
Unless authority is cited, all my postings in this group
should be understood to be IMHO.