How many hyphens should there be in this phrase?
Vietnam war veteran turned performing artist Joe Smith
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1None. Please advance your own hypotheses and reasoning. This isn’t a quiz show or a guessing game.– tchrist ♦Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 23:40
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I already know my reasoning and wondered what other people thought without coloring their opinions.– user38661Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 23:50
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Then you should have said that. As it is, it is not a good question, and might get closed.– tchrist ♦Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 23:53
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2I would choose: Vietnam-war-veteran-turned-performing-artist Joe Smith. You want all of what comes before to modify Joe Smith, and the hyphens help the reader realize that without having to backtrack.– JLGCommented Mar 4, 2013 at 1:13
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1There should not be any hyphens because it needs to be rewritten to avoid a confusing and (to my mind) ugly expression. Unless of course this is a party trick rather than "real" writing.– FortiterCommented Mar 4, 2013 at 1:35
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1 Answer
Your phrase needs either 5 hyphens or a comma. The purpose of the hyphens is to create a single adjective, so that it becomes 'Vietnam-war-veteran-turned-performing-artist Joe Smith'. However, I find that is more elegant, though equally correct, to write about the 'Vietnam war veteran turned performing artist, Joe Smith'.
I'd suggest letting context guide your decision. At the beginning of a sentence, the hyphens make it immediately clear that phrase is a description, though in the case of more than a small handful of words, the hyphens garble the meaning instead of clarifying it.
answered Mar 4, 2013 at 13:01
