0

Is there a way to write the following so it doesn't use hanging hyphens? Are all the hyphens necessary? This is meant to be a brief description. For clarify, assume it starts "He is a ...":

3x Emmy Award-, Critics Choice Award-, and WPA Award-winning writer, comedian, and actor ...

Can I write:

3x Emmy Award, Critics Choice Award, and WPA Award-winning ...

Improve this question
5
  • The point of serial is to avoid misunderstanding. You've presented a sentence fragment here; perhaps it starts with "he is a" or "I'd like to introduce the." It's unlikely that anyone would think that an award would be the object of these phrases. It also helps that you started with "3X," something that would make no sense in any other usage (assuming that it makes any sense in this one).
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 25 at 17:30
  • But a similar sentence could be a garden path: "The Emmy Award, Critics Choice Award, and WPA Award-winning writer..." Especially without introductory context, we get very far into this sentence before we discover that the subject is not in fact the awards but the writer.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jul 25 at 17:30
  • 1
    The simplest alternative would be to repeat winning, but you could rephrase in many ways e.g. "A writer, comedian and actor, recipient of 3 Emmys, a Critics Choice, and a WPA Award". (I'm assuming interested people would know what an Emmy is, even if they're vaguer re WPA). Note that there's ambiguity over what he won the awards for - is it respectively, did he win WPA as all three, or is there no particular relationship?
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 25 at 17:51
  • 1
    Emmy-, Critics Choice-, and WPA-award-winning writer, comedian, and actor ...
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Jul 25 at 18:55
  • 1
    Emmy, Critics Choice, and WPA winner as a writer, comedian, and actor ...
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Jul 25 at 18:55

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

I suspect that, strictly speaking, the series does indeed require hanging hyphens on each of the items, until the final item closes off the series with the governing participle. However, the series' complexity gives me pause. Each item contains proper, compound nouns, and the resultant complexity seem to heighten the need for the parsing power of the hyphen. But that same complexity also becomes a bit of a jumble - even with hyphens. Ultimately, I agree with Yosef: This clause merits rephrasing altogether.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .