Mixing hyphenated prefixes with cased hyphenated compound modifiers

Question

Suppose I know two professors. Both of them are old, and both of them study English. Then each one is an old English professor.

Suppose one and only one of them is a scholar of Old English. Then that one would be an Old English professor.

But now I have a question about the other professor.

Is he a non-Old English professor or a non-Old-English professor?

There would thus be no Old English professor of that sort, but a professor of/in Old English. You can find an old English professor anywhere, though if you note the capitalization. — Kris, Dec 8, 2016 at 8:46
There are old Old English professors and there are bald Old English professors. There are even old, bald Old English professors, but there are no old, bold Old English professors. — Mick, Dec 8, 2016 at 9:31

onigame · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-09 00:15:28Z

1

I asked on Facebook, and a friend pointed out that the Chicago Manual of Style answers this question with the example "non–United States citizen":

Answer: use an en-dash. So, "non–Old English professor" instead of "non-Old English professor".

answered Dec 9, 2016 at 0:15

onigame

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