Note, though, that whether or not you choose to style a compound as one word or two might convey something about your familiarity with the word (or lack thereof). Some writers are more comfortable lumping together compounds than others. Hyphens tend not be used for adjectives that are modified by adverbs, even when they come before nouns: lightly salted peanuts, distantly related cousins, a poorly written sentence.įor most other instances, the best strategy may be to trust what you think looks right. Hyphens also work well with compound adjectives that end in a participle: a funny-looking badger, a sun-bleached roof, fire-roasted tomatoes, a money-grubbing thief. (Even in these instances, the hyphen is sometimes dropped for very common terms that aren’t likely to be misunderstood, like real estate agent or health care legislation).
#MEDIEVAL LAST NAMES HYPHENATION RULES MOVIE#
Same with a video-game collector, a food-truck business, a pet-store employee, or even adjectives made from phrases, like made-for-TV movie or over-the-counter medication. So you can speak of a person who loves science fiction going to a science-fiction convention. (Loose) Guidelinesįor example, when a compound that is usually left open is used to modify another noun, that compound will usually take a hyphen. So much fluidity, in fact, that the dictionary cannot always provide a cut-and-dried answer, as much as it tries.īut do not despair: there are a smattering of guidelines that are for the most part consistent and that can help you. What all of this means is that there is a great deal of fluidity when it comes to the styling of compounds and whether a particular compound is open, hyphenated, or closed. And front yard and front seat tend to appear as two words, but backyard and backseat as one.
You’re more apt to find a hyphen in double-header or double-decker than in double play. You are likely, for example, to spell shoelace, postcard, rattlesnake, and doorknob as closed compounds, but you’re also likely to find shoe tree, post office, garter snake, and door handle as open. Now we almost invariably see them closed, and that’s the only styling they are shown with in the dictionary.Įven words that might seem comparable can show disparate forms.
Similarly, lifestyle, boilerplate, doorbell, screwdriver, tailwind, rowboat, and postcard all had eras when they were encountered more commonly as open or hyphenated compounds. As the sport took hold in the American consciousness, it gradually began to be spelled with a hyphen ( base-ball), but now any form other than the solid compound baseball looks like an affectation. There was a time, after all, when baseball was spelled as base ball. Historically, a lot of compounds follow the pattern of entering English as open compounds, then gradually take on hyphenation and eventually a closed form as they become more familiar. Absence of a particular compound style in the dictionary doesn't mean it's not in use it only means it's much less common. The same is true for terms like vice president and tape measure. The term tongue twister, for example, is shown as an open (two-word) compound, even though there is plenty of evidence for tongue-twister in the wild. If that evidence changed, then the headword was revised.Įven in the digital age, this is true for many entries. You saw only one styling-the one that occurred most frequently within a sample of evidence. This practice was necessitated by the limitations of page space: it simply wasn’t practical to show all of the possible permutations of a compound word at the expense of other information in a print dictionary entry. Open, Hyphenated, and Closed Compoundsįor much of the dictionary’s history, a compound word was shown in only one form-closed, hyphenated, or open-even if there were examples of two or, sometimes, all three forms in use. The definitive answer is: it's complicated.
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