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Is it necessary to have a hyphen in the following phrase?

graded-reading books

Please my friends you are only hope for me at a last chance salon because my teacher he is not knowing answer.

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  • This may help: grammar-monster.com/lessons/hyphens_in_compound_adjectives.htm
    – user66974
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 10:01
  • @TheBeeferFan Please read this to know how to use Mrs., Miss, and Ms. and also avoid thanking for every edit, and adding a title like "Mr."/"Mrs." to everyone's username online. Try to be gender-neutral. Also avoid calling everyone "my friend".
    – Neeku
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 10:22
  • @Neeku Sorry. I try harder to make it good but it very difficult. I try be polite and get wrong.
    – The Beefer Fan
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 12:19
  • Just in case others are misled: this is a joke/troll account that asks silly and deliberately disingenuous questions that nonetheless require a bit of lateral thinking to locate the actual jokes.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Apr 3, 2015 at 18:03

2 Answers 2

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You should add a hyphen whenever you're using a compound adjective for a noun that is being used as a single descriptor for the noun.

For example in the phrase you provided, graded-reading is a single descriptor all together for the noun books, and saying graded books, or reading books separately, won't make sense to imply what you mean. So, yes, you must use a hyphen there.

Read this article here.

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If the books are about reading that is graded then yes, you can use a hyphen (probably what you need).

If the books are about reading and the books themselves are graded don't use a hyphen.

Also, check out ell.

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  • Thank you my frend. But what is a difference between dash and hyphen?
    – The Beefer Fan
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 9:59
  • That's not a minus sign; it's a hyphen. Compare. This is a hyphen: -. This is a minus sign: −. It looks a lot like an en dash: –. The minus sign and hyphen were combined on the typewriter and ASCII and early computer systems, but they've always been different in typesetting and are different in Unicode (which is what should count today).
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 11:11
  • rephrasing my previous comment: A hyphen is shorter. Unless you are publishing something it doesn't really matter. You are probably using the hyphen anyway and that should be fine. hyphen/minus sign/en dash/em dash: - − – —
    – msam
    Commented Jul 11, 2014 at 11:43

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