When should words be hyphenated?

When should words be hyphenated?

Generally, you need the hyphen only if the two words are functioning together as an adjective before the noun they’re describing. If the noun comes first, leave the hyphen out.

Are compound nouns hyphenated?

Compound nouns comprised of a noun and a participle (in any order) must be hyphenated when being used as an adjective: a garden-filled city, cutting-edge methods. Otherwise, no hyphens are needed.

Is socioeconomic hyphenated?

notes❯ In the current Concise Oxford English Dictionary, “macroeconomic” and “microeconomic” are solid but “socio-economic” is hyphenated .

Is chocolate covered hyphenated?

BUT when these compound modifiers come after a noun, they are not hyphenated: The peanuts were chocolate covered. These words are nouns, not adjectives, but the hyphen or no hyphen question applies to them.

Does self motivated have a hyphen?

(Long-term is hyphenated because it comes before the noun. (No hyphen because high volume comes after the noun.) We need experience with high-volume, close-tolerance manufacturing, and we prefer someone who is self motivated. (Note that high-volume and close-tolerance are hyphenated, and self motivated is not.)

What words are hyphenated?

There are five types of words that should be hyphenated:

  • Compound adjective + noun. When you use a compound adjective before the noun, you should hyphenate:
  • Age + noun. If age is being used as an adjective before the noun, you should hyphenate:
  • Numbers 21 through 99.
  • Some prefixes.
  • For clarity.

What are 10 examples of compound nouns?

Examples of compound nouns are like washing machine, boyfriend, dining-table, public speaking, greenhouse, bus stop, fire-fly, football, full moon, bystander, blackboard, software, breakfast, lookout, swimming pool, sunrise, upturn, haircut, train-spotting, check-out, mother-in-law, underworld, truckful, bedroom.

Can you put two nouns together?

A compound noun is a noun made by putting two or more words together to act as one noun. These nouns can be written as one word (as in fireworks and waistline), as hyphenated words (as in well-being), or as separate words (as in ice cream). Compound nouns often have different meanings from their separate words.

Does Secretary General Need a hyphen?

Others, such as secretary-general (the title of the head of the United Nations), retain this form as a holdover from a time when hyphenation of compound nouns was rampant, though technically, general is an adjective modifying secretary (as in the example of president-elect, below).

Is policy making hyphenated?

Merriam-Webster Unabridged doesn’t list “policy-maker” or “policymaker.” This may be taken to mean that MW considers it two words: “policy maker.” The American Heritage Dictionary, however, lists “policymaker” as one word, no hyphen. And while we’re at it, MW thinks “policyholder” is one word.

What is a word made up of 2 words?

Portmanteau word, also called blend, a word that results from blending two or more words, or parts of words, such that the portmanteau word expresses some combination of the meaning of its parts.

Does small business have a hyphen?

The hyphen makes all the difference in phrases such as “small grain” and “small business,” too. You need the hyphen in these examples for a couple of reasons: to avoid confusion about your meaning and to form a compound modifier. A compound modifier is two or more words strung together to express a single concept.

When do you do not need to hyphenate a number?

Larger round numbers, such as “one hundred,” do not require a hyphen.

When to use hyphens when writing a period of time?

A handy rule, whether writing about years, months, or any other period of time, is to use hyphens unless the period of time (years, months, weeks, days) is written in plural form: With hyphens: We have a two-year-old child.

When to use a hyphen in a report?

One hyphen can make all the difference in clarity. For example, if a professor asks a class to write nine page reports, a well-placed hyphen would clarify if the students should each write nine separate reports about a page ( nine “page reports”) or each write reports that are nine pages in length ( nine-page reports ).

How to use hyphens before and after common base?

Here are some examples: Modifiers Before Common Base (Use Hyphen Modifiers After Common Base (No Hyphens) short- and long-term effects the effects were short and long term 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old girls the girls were 4, 5, and 6 years old 10th- and 11th-grade students the students were in the 10th and 11th g