A hyphen is a commonly used punctuation mark, although its proper usage is often misunderstood. The primary function of a hyphen is to glue words together by showing their relationship.
A compound adjective is two or more words that come before a noun and modify it as a single thought. Some examples of compound adjectives would be:
If these compound adjectives were used in a sentence after the noun, they would not need to be hyphenated. Examples:
Some well-established compound adjectives are always hyphenated, such as our all-star example.
If you are using a new, original, or unusual compound noun, you will want to use a hyphen to avoid any possible confusion.
You can use a hyphen to help distinguish any periods of time that you may have in your writing.
You will also want to be sure to always include the second hyphen in this case. Without the second hyphen, this sentence becomes about an old child.
When writing about years, months, or any other period of time, be sure to use hyphens unless the period of time (years, months, weeks, days) is written in plural form.
When using a hyphen, you will want to ensure that you are using a hyphen and not a dash. The hyphen can be found on most standard PC keyboards as the bottom symbol on the key between the 0 and the = sign.
When you are using a hyphen in your writing, you will want to be sure that you are not putting spaces before or after the hyphen in your sentence.
With this rule, you cannot use the word very or an adverb that ends in -ly as part of any compound adjectives that would need to be hyphenated. An adverb is defined as: a word or phrase that modifies or qualifies an adjective, verb, or other adverb or a word group, expressing a relation of place, time, circumstance, manner, cause, or degree (e.g., gently, quite, then, there).
If you are not sure whether you should add a hyphen to your writing, and you believe that your phrasing will cause a misunderstanding, feel free to add the hyphen. We have listed some additional examples of when you should add a hyphen below:
If you are using a prefix in your sentence, and the root word begins with the last letter of the prefix, hyphenate the word.
If you are using the prefix re-, and the final word could be confused with another existing word, you will need to add a hyphen to show which word you mean.
If you believe that your word will be jumbled or lose some of its intended meaning without including a hyphen, then you can add one without breaking any writing rules.
You will need to put a hyphen into any compound numbers or spelled out fractions.
You will want to be sure that you do not include a hyphen in any fractions that are introduced by “a” or “an”.
When you are using a proper noun that consists of two words, you should not include a hyphen.
Examples:
Ultimately, when you are confused about whether to use a hyphen, you should look up the word that you are trying to use. If you are still confused, let eContent Pro help you.
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