Hyphen

1. Hyphen English III/IV

2. Grammar, It’s Crazy • Style, style, style • When in doubt, use a style guide or dictionary • Grammar issues – capitalizing after a colon • Spelling issues – American vs. British • Formatting issues - fonts • General writing recommendations – Is jargon allowed

3. Compound Modifier • Which would you rather read? • “She looked up at the green sky and shrunk away from the white lightning.” Or • “She looked up at the eerie-green sky and shrunk away from the white-hot lightning.” • A compound modifier refers to two or more words expressing a single concept.

4. Take it Further… • Adjectives modify nouns • Compound modifiers take it further • “His yellow-green teeth were visible beneath a salt-and-pepper mustache.”

5. Modify • “His yellow-green teeth were visible beneath a salt-and-pepper mustache.” • Yellow and Green • Salt and Pepper • They modify the nouns teeth and mustache

6. Exceptions • Compound modifiers are not hyphenated ahead of a noun if the word very or an adverb ending in ly. • Example • The very dark sky hovered over us. Vs. • The raven-black sky hovered over us.

7. Changing the Meaning • Examples: • A hot-water bottle is a bottle for holding hot water. • (A bottle for hot water.) Vs. • A hot water bottle is a water bottle that is hot. • (A bottle that is hot)

8. In-Word Hyphenation • Example: • I need to re-press my jeans. Vs. • I need to repress my jeans.

9. In-Word Hyphenation • Use a dictionary • Use a hyphen when joining a prefix to word that needs to be capitalized or when joining a letter to a word. • Examples: • Anti-American • X-ray • A-list

10. One more Thing • Use a hyphen to write numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine • Thirty-five • Sixty-four • Ninety-three