Questions tagged [hyphenation]
A hyphen is a symbol used to join two words or two syllables of a single word together. It is not to be confused with dashes or the minus symbol, as these are all longer than the hyphen and serve different purposes in language.
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Should "Augmented" in RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) be hyphenated?
RAG is a popular approach used in Generative Artificial Intelligence (Generative AI).
Of the major technology organisations, Microsoft Azure's site shows "Retrieval Augmented Generation" ...
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How to hyphenate 'first aid trained' in a description of a staff member [duplicate]
Which of these phrases is more correct? I am trying to express that the campsite stewards are trained in first aid and are stationed on site.
on-site first-aid trained campsite stewards
on-site first-...
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How would you write a new word with stress on a syllable in dialogue?
I am not able to find the answer to this by googling.
I am writing dialogue for a fiction story.
I have a few new words I have made up and want to stress a certain syllable in them.
For example:
&...
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How often "-to-be" is added to nouns? is it ok to modify nouns this way?
I would like to use some noun and express plans about it in the future. Think, getting something.
I see "my bride-to-be" as a good example. It's better than using "wannabe." Can I ...
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low risk rating VS low-risk rating [duplicate]
As I understand what is happening:
First, we have a rating.
Second, we modify it with an adjective, calling it a risk rating.
Third, we modify the adjective with another adjective, which is why we ...
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Do you hyphenate a number with an omitted “hundred”?
Numbers with hundreds are normally spelled out without hyphens; e.g., 250 = “two hundred and fifty”. But when informally spoken as “two fifty”(*), such as in dialogue, should this be hyphenated as “...
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Is there a phrase "a carry-and-top"?
I've encountered a phrase that I can't find out in spite of my attempts to look up in several dictionaries and browsing online. I've tried Ludwig too, but still can't find satisfying answer.
It's ...
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Hyphenation of Compound Adjectives in Math
I am interested in the rules concerning the spelling of some mathematical terms like "continuously(-)differentiable function" or "Lipschitz(-)continuous function".
As I understood (...
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How to hyphenate plural words [duplicate]
My text is fully justified with auto hyphenation turned on. However, the auto hyphenation is showing a number of plural words as being hyphenated with "es" on the next line. For example, &...
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Why is it moth-er, but fa-ther? [duplicate]
I've googled around and haven't found a single good resource on hyphenation rules in English that explain why, for instance, it's moth-er, but fa-ther. Or Lat-in but cre-tin etc. etc. Anyone with any ...
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Can there be two different hyphens in multi-word compounds in English?
In Wiley's redaction, they edited our hyphens in our article title, so we have now two different hyphens there:
Extension of Pradel capture–recapture survival‐recruitment model
accounting for ...
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Hyphens are used in words from 0-99 (correction 21-99), but what if a number larger than 99 is a compound adjective before a noun?
For example, which of these are correct?
The pizza delivery service had three thousand, seven hundred and eighty-two clients.
The pizza delivery service had three-thousand-seven-hundred-and-eighty-...
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Re-condition vs recondition in statistical text [duplicate]
I write an article which is talking about conditional probabilities. Each probability is conditioned on something (some condition). Then, in the following sentence, I am talking about changing this ...
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When do you use hyphens with compound adjectives?
I understand there are numerous questions related to this question but nothing truly clarifies my problem.
I have been trying to understand when I should use hyphens in compound adjectives and I seem ...
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Proper hyphenation of “technologies”
The New Oxford spelling dictionary by Maurice Waite from 2005 says on p. 521,
tech|nolo¦gies
Note there's no break after “techno” despite the Greek root téchnē. Why? Could we kindly ask for an ...
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How would I hyphenate the phrase "quaternary ammonium compound based?"? [closed]
I'm writing a scientific research paper, and in the abstract, I need to describe the substance that my team used in an experiment. The substance in question is a cleaner called Ster-BacⓇ Blu, and it ...
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Context-specific hyphenation
Are there any heteronyms in English with different hyphenation patterns for line breaking? That is, is there any sequence of letters which can be interpreted as two different words with different ...
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When someone spells out letters in dialogue, should they be capitalized? "P-L-E-A-S-E" vs. "p-l-e-a-s-e"
I'm not finding the answer to this on the internet after searching.
When writing dialogue, do you use capital letters to spell out words?
Jamie said, "I said P-L-E-A-S-E please, and don't you ...
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Three-word compound adjectives that look awful [closed]
One English rule is to hyphenate two or more words when they come before a noun they modify and act as a single idea, called a compound adjective. This is the most common use of the hyphen I've seen. ...
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Do we need to hyphenate the compund noun if it is given as an object complement? [duplicate]
I have a question about hyphenating compound nouns when they function as object complements. For instance, should entertainment oriented be hyphenated in below sentence?
Much of the radio programming ...
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Hyphenation of compounds with terms made of two words
Working on a thesis, I was wondering how to correctly hyphenate (if at all) the term "high data rate" in the following sentence:
High data rate ECUs are connected directly to the backbone.
...
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Should I hyphenate “Haunted Mansion themed outfit”?
In a sentence “She wore a Haunted Mansion themed outfit.” Should there be any hyphens?
a) a Haunted Mansion themed outfit
b) a Haunted-Mansion themed outfit
c) a Haunted-Mansion-themed outfit
d) a ...
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Are either of the phrases "African-American individuals" or "European-American individuals" hyphenated? [closed]
This is in American English, but if it is different in British English, it is worth a mention.
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Is there a name for the misuse of a hyphen/dash?
I'm wondering if there is a name for the misuse of a dash in English Grammar. For clarity, I say 'dash' because I see them used in a way that the writer may think is an em dash, but more often writers ...
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Time off request or time-off request? [duplicate]
Hello fellow grammar lovers!
I need some help.
I'm working on HR resources and have run into a bit of a conundrum about how to write about PTO.
I know that I "would like to take time off." ...
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How to hyphenate "upper middle class" when used as an adjective? [duplicate]
I am proofreading an article and have come across: "to a focus on a fulfilled (upper)middle-class life". At first I was simply going to put a space between the closing parenthesis and the &...
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If you must split the word anonymous at the end of a line, where should the hyphen go? [duplicate]
If you must split the word anonymous at the end of a text line, where should the hyphen go? How would you split the word?
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Hyphenating a term that has spaces [duplicate]
I would typically use the term "electric field" like so: "[...] therefore, it has a high electric field". If I wanted to hyphenate this term with a compound word, how would I do so?...
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How should I punctuate a phrasal adjective with additional adjective before the noun?
I am trying to discover the correct hyphenation and/or comma placement for the following sentence relating to honey bees:
When she hatches out of her egg, she is placed into a royal jelly filled ...
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Hyphen in "a much-needed physiological understanding of..."
Although it looks and feels perhaps superfluous to me, it seems the hyphen is correct in these sentences, according to Chicago or other style guides, but I wish to confirm this.
A much-needed ...
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Is the word subprocedure; sub-procedure; or sub procedure correct? [duplicate]
I want to use the single word variety, but my spellchecker is telling me the split two words is correct. This looks wrong to me, is there a standard for this type of word and "prefix"?
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Where should one place word division dots in "Schroedinger" (with "oe" instead of "ö")?
According to Merriam-Webster, the 'word division dots' for Schrödinger are placed like this: Schrö·ding·er.
However, some sources (mostly older ones), use the spelling Schroedinger, with "oe"...
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Is [Pre-Populates, Pre Populates, Prepopulates] a word?
[Pre-Populates, Pre Populates, Prepopulates]
Simple at first but after some research I can't actually find much on this.
Background/Context: I need to write some sort of tech specification and the ...
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Deep learning-based approach VS deep learning approach
I would like to find an expression to describe the approaches that use deep learning to solve a computer-related task and then compare them to the traditional approaches i.e., the approaches that do ...
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How should partial dates hyphened? [closed]
I want to write an abbreviated period of time that goes from 2017 to 2019. I have thought of writing it either as
2017-19
or
2017 - 19
The difference is in the spacing. Which option is best?
Also, ...
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An inner-product space or an inner product space?
I have seen both of these being used for referring to a mathematical object (a vector space with a certain structure on it called the inner product). I am assuming both are accepted since they appear ...
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Hyphenating modifiers
Sometimes it's easy to tell when modifiers need to be hyphenated, such as "time-dependent model", "well-known problem", etc. But sometimes I get confused whether the noun is ...
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Is post-hyphenation necessary in "I am a child and adult psychologist..."?
I am editing a bio for a non-writer who has written:
"I am a child and adult psychologist..."
This is awkward... it sounds like he's a child. How do I remedy this?
Is it something like: &...
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"second largest" vs "second-largest" [duplicate]
Does this construct require an hyphen?
Example:
"We obtained the dataset from HP, the second largest firm in the US by revenues."
"We obtained the dataset from HP, the second-largest ...
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Pumpkin-Eating festival/Pumpkin-Eating Festival [closed]
Do I have to hyphenate the last word of this phrase, which is the name of a festival? I do know that the first word, which is a compound adjective, is certainly hyphenated, but about the word festival ...
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Should one avoid hyphenating prefixed words in scientific papers?
I have noticed that many papers and books (in the engineering and mathematical fields, at least) have a preference for avoiding hyphenated prefixes. For instance, they usually write:
preprocessing
...
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What is the most proper way to add -ing to acronyms? [duplicate]
Sometimes acronyms represent actions. For example, a Super Smash Bros. player may be said to be "DI-ing" (Directional influencing).
In these situations, what would be the best-established ...
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Skipping the repeated part of a partially repeated hyphenated adjective
I read this in today's New York Times:
The bloggers have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks in calling for an overhaul of Russia’s approach to war to protect its shrinking gains in Ukraine ...
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Suspending non-hyphenated compounds of two nouns [closed]
I know that I can use hyphens to suspend compounds that are written with a hyphen to begin with, for example "first-class fares and second-class fares" can be written as "first- and ...
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Correct hyphenation in compound adjective
I want to rephrase
The costs they compute are weighted by time intervals.
by
They compute time interval-weighted costs.
The question is, what is the correct hyphenation?
time interval weighted
...
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Why are compound words not entirely consistent?
Some compound words are separated by a space (e.g. ice cream). Others are simply joined together (e.g. football, doorknob). Others still are hyphenated (e.g. long-term, off-topic).
Why is the handling ...
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Usage of hypens when using two compund nouns [duplicate]
I was wondering about the correct usage of the hyphen in cases of the form:
In the short- and long-run.
As opposed to:
In the short and long-run.
Is the first case accepted?
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"still-warm" or "still-beating" heart - hyphen or no?
A copy editor wants to remove the hyphen from the "still-warm" in a (medieval-themed) comic:
A noise very much like the sound of me ripping your still-warm heart from your ribcage.
I ...
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Noun-adjective hyphenation when noun contains a numeral
The specific context here is Machine Learning technical writing, but I think this question fits here because I just haven't seen any discussion of this anywhere, and few examples in my field, so I'm ...
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Is it correct to write "free-of-the-war"? [closed]
Is it correct in English to write "free-of-the-war" as an adjective via hyphens?
For example, "I live in a free-of-the-war part of Ukraine"
And how about "yet"? That is &...
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