5 Cases of Too Few or Too Many Hyphens

5 Cases of Too Few or Too Many Hyphens 5 Cases of Too Few or Too Many Hyphens 5 Cases of Too Few or Too Many Hyphens By Mark Nichol When it comes to hyphenation, prose often suffers from the Goldilocks effect: either too much or too little, but seldom just right. Here are some erroneously constructed elements along with repaired revisions that let them eat, sit, or sleep with contentment. 1. â€Å"Scientists have found that a second, as-yet smaller wave of mussel extinctions followed in the late twentieth century.† The key point is not a smaller wave that is as yet that makes no sense. The reference is to a wave that is as yet, or up to now, smaller; it’s an as-yet-smaller wave: â€Å"Scientists have found that a second, as-yet-smaller wave of mussel extinctions followed in the late twentieth century.† 2. â€Å"They criticized the arbitrary measures taken so far on the air-travel security front.† The front in question is not a security front pertaining to air travel; it is a front pertaining to air-travel security. For that reason, security should be linked to â€Å"air travel† to modify front as one unit: â€Å"They criticized the arbitrary measures taken so far on the air-travel-security front.† (The progression is â€Å"air travel† to â€Å"air-travel security† to â€Å" air-travel-security front.†) In order to avoid an adjective stack, a writer could, with slightly more formality, conversely relax the sentence to read, â€Å"They criticized the arbitrary measures taken so far in the area of air-travel security† (or â€Å". . . in the area of security during air travel†). 3. â€Å"We offer an industry leading cloud based property management solution.† This sentence seems to cry out for a handout of hyphens to link pairs of words (â€Å"industry-leading,† â€Å"cloud-based,† â€Å"property-management†). But that solution ignores the fact that with or without the requisite hyphens to link words to form hyphenated compounds, this sentence is an adjective-stacking train wreck. Let’s turn this loco locomotive around: â€Å"We offer a cloud-based solution for property management that leads the industry.† (It’s still empty-headed branding gobbledygook, but it’s relaxed empty-headed branding gobbledygook.) 4. â€Å"That’s enough to power about 90 percent of a 1,500-square foot home.† This sentence is not about the energy needs of a foot home that consists of 1,500 squares; it’s about the energy needs of a home that encompasses 1,500 square feet. Those three words pertaining to horizontal area should all be hyphenated to form a three-car train modifying home: â€Å"That’s enough to power about 90 percent of a 1,500-square-foot home.† 5. â€Å"They are turning a blind eye to what their low and middle ranking members do on the streets.† This writer evidently forgot what he or she had ever learned about suspensive hyphenation and simply omitted any hyphens. One more time: â€Å"low and middle rank members† is slight shorthand for â€Å"low-ranking members† and â€Å"middle-ranking members.† To signal that ranking applies to low as well as middle, low retains a hyphen in spite of the omission of the first iteration of ranking: â€Å"They are turning a blind eye to what their low- and middle-ranking members do on the streets.† (Because â€Å"low-[ranking members]† and â€Å"middle-ranking members† are separate items, â€Å"low-and-middle-ranking members† is wrong.) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Punctuating â€Å"So† at the Beginning of a SentenceBest Websites to Learn English10 Tips About How to Write a Caption