For upper right most, I’ve seen it written upper-right most, upper-right-most, and with no hyphens at all.
What makes the most sense to me is upper rightmost, but it’s hard to tell that upper right is the adjective to which most is being applied.
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possible duplicate of Using "non-" to prefix a two-word phrase– tchrist ♦Jul 17, 2014 at 16:15
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4Rightmost is already unhyphenated. There need be no hyphens at all. I.e, upper rightmost is kosher.– John LawlerJul 17, 2014 at 16:21
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Upper rightmost is not the same as upper-right most, so it may depend on which you mean.– Tim LymingtonJul 17, 2014 at 16:23
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@JohnLawler: That makes a lot of sense; I wish it were clearer to read.– andyvn22Jul 17, 2014 at 16:33
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Then don't use such small phrases. If you've got a sentence worth of meaning, send a sentence to do it; don't try to pack it into one teensy phrase.– John LawlerJul 17, 2014 at 17:53
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2 Answers
As John Lawler comments, and as this chart makes clear,...
...rightmost isn't normally hyphenated. And there's no need for one in upper rightmost.
answered Jul 17, 2014 at 16:34
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@tchrist: I don't think so. It says Replaced right-most with right - most to match how we processed the books. That would be pretty daft if it was just doing arithmetic (which I thought always required brackets anyway). Jul 17, 2014 at 17:02
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Then why doesn’t it supply a Google Books link to texts with right-most in them?– tchrist ♦Jul 17, 2014 at 17:18
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@tchrist: I didn't notice any right-most instances in the first 2-3 pages. It only has the non-hyphenated one in the "link to books" lines under the chart. I assume that's because there weren't enough of the hyphenated one, but I don't know much about how NGrams works internally. I trust what the chart is telling me, though. Jul 17, 2014 at 17:31
However you punctuate it, this is appalling English. Why don’t you say “closest to the upper-right-hand corner”?
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