When there’s an age or numberĪny numbers above twenty are considered compound words and to be correctly understood as a single number, rather than multiple, require a hyphen between them. Hint: A common mistake with hyphens is to use them after adverbsįinally, there’s one more crucial place you should know your hyphen rules for: numbers. You can also use hyphens to express ideas creatively, such as “being stuck in a don’t-dare-to-dream hole.” Essentially, you can use hyphens whenever you want a phrase to be taken as a single unit. These are phrases that are understood as a single word or idea, which is why they need to be hyphenated. Some common uses are “edge-of-your-seat” and “mother-in-law,” among many others. Since it’s clear that “on campus” refers to housing, there's no need to add a hyphen to clarify that.Ĭompound modifiers can also be used with whole phrases that need more than one hyphen. Students are required to live in housing on campus. Let’s look at the same example, phrased differently: However, a hyphen with a compound modifier is only required when the adjective comes before the noun. Without the hyphen, the sentence would be incorrect and confusing, but with the hyphen it’s clear that the two words belong together.
“On-campus” is a single unit of meaning referring to the university’s housing. If you were to write “on campus housing” without the hyphen, the meaning of the phrase would be lost. Students are required to live in on-campus housing. This is typically a combination of an adjective and a noun. When there’s a compound modifierĪ compound modifier is when there are two or more words that make a unit of meaning, and without the hyphen, it’s unclear that these words are related. Compound modifiers, on the other hand, can get a bit tricky. You’ll have to play it by ear, but it’s usually fairly easy to get it right. Overall, there’s no hard and fast rule for which compound words need hyphens and which ones don’t. But when the compound word is not so common, the hyphen is required. Some of them become so commonly used that they eventually merge into one, such as firefighter or policeman. When there’s a compound wordĪ compound word is exactly what it sounds like: two or more words combined into one as nouns or adjectives. But what kinds of words can be connected with a hyphen? Here are three of the most common instances. Since it’s used to connect words, it doesn’t have spaces on either side of it. When do you need a hyphen?Ī hyphen looks like this (-) and is much shorter than a dash. In this post, we look at some quick rules that will help you figure out if you need to use a hyphen or a dash. Knowing when each mark should be used can be challenging. Hyphens are used to connect related words, while dashes are used as a “stronger comma” to highlight a certain part of a sentence. Hyphens (-) and dashes (-) are punctuation marks used to connect ideas, though the two are often confused.
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