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I spoke with a teacher about an essay I wrote recently. We talked through certain parts which couldn't be described by squiggles and dots in red ink. This helped me, but I'm having difficulty now with identifying the meaning of certain squiggles and dots in red ink.

In "never-ending," my teacher drew a vertical dash through the hyphen, and then made vertical parentheses around the dash (two arcs, each curving from "never" to "ending").

What does this mark mean? I assume it means "remove the hyphen and separate 'never-ending' into two words."

Also, "never-ending" serves as an adjective in this context.

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    I'm not sure this is the kind of question we answer here, but it means get rid of the hyphen and combine "neverending" into one word. However, in my opinion, your version is more standard than your teacher's.
    – Chris Sunami
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 3:54
  • Yeah, your teacher means what Chris is saying. I'd say that it's a matter of opinion, because "neverending" is not included in Opera's dictionary, correction prompt suggests "never ending" or "never-ending". It's not a solid evidence, but you certainly can say that at least one international organization agrees with yours
    – Raestloz
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 4:31
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    chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_proof.html
    – Jim
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 5:14
  • it's extremely easy to add images to posts on sites like this. you should do so if relevant.
    – Fattie
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 6:20
  • Does this mean that the teacher asked him to put in a parentheses?
    – Raestloz
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 6:34

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Chris' comment is actually the answer, but I can't format things well in comments

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 8th edition (app edition), which includes contents from OALD 2010 and Oxford Learner's Pocket Thesaurus 2010 does not have an entry that says "neverending" (compound) that your teacher suggests, what it does have is "never-ending" (your version).

As of this writing (typing?) Oxford's online resource does not have "neverending", what it does have is "never-ending"

The same stance is also taken by UK Advanced Cryptics Dictionary (this dictionary is used by Opera, the browser I'm using). Opera highlights "neverending" as wrong, suggesting corrections as "never ending" or "never-ending"

The free dictionary also says the same: if you try to search for "neverending", it will suggest "never-ending" or "never ending" instead

While technically you can join two words into one like "neverending", I'd say that your usage is much more common and recognized. Perhaps you should speak about this to your teacher.

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    Right. It's worth nothing that the popular 80s children's film en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_NeverEnding_Story_(film) had a very whacky take on this.
    – Fattie
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 6:22
  • @JoeBlow What an astonishing example of both examples being used at once in one page
    – Raestloz
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 6:26
  • No kidding! My point was just that, when you get horrible grammar or spelling in a famous film, book title or the like, I guess it can affect the public. There's probably a coterie of then-children who think NeverEnding is spelled that way "like in da movie"
    – Fattie
    Commented Sep 23, 2014 at 6:29

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