223. Uses of Hyphens

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English uses hyphens in four main situations, each of which can cause problems

THE PROBLEM WITH HYPHENS

A hyphen (–) is a punctuation mark that shows togetherness of words or word parts, as in top-ranking. The spelling with “ph” indicates that the name comes from Greek, where hyph-en literally means “under one”, i.e. “unitary” or “together” (see 90. The Greek Impact on English Vocabulary). Hyphens look like dashes – indeed one respected grammar book says that they are “a form of dash”[i]. However, dashes have very different uses (see 294. Parentheses), and computer writing tools like Microsoft Word make them visibly longer than hyphens.

English has numerous hyphen-containing (“hyphenated”) words. The problem is that there is no single rule indicating when or when not to use a hyphen. Instead, different rules have to be listed, and some are quite complicated. The inevitable result is that hyphens are sometimes used or not used wrongly, even by writers whose mother tongue is English. In this post I wish to look in detail at hyphen rules in English and to highlight some common errors to avoid. The approach is similar to that in 50. Right and Wrong Comma Places and 58. Optional Apostrophe Endings.

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LIST OF USES

Hyphens go in four main places: words split between lines of text, some compound words, some words with a prefix or suffix, and word groups acting together like an adjective before a noun.

1. Words Split between Lines

Most people know about this use of hyphens. However, it is also an area where incorrect usage is very common, especially among writers whose mother tongue is not English. The problem is not usually whether to hyphenate a word but where. There are two key rules: word breaks (and hence hyphens) may only be between syllables, and they should not be located before or after just one letter of their word, and often two as well.

One consequence of this rule is that not all syllable divisions can be used for splitting a word, those before or after just one or two letters being excluded. Thus, a split between different lines is unnatural or undesirable with words like o·ther, re·fer, to·ma·to and emp·ty (syllable breaks marked by ·). Such words are normally better written in full at the start of the new line.

Another consequence is that writers must be able to recognise syllable divisions. They must know, for example, that the first syllable of complain, after which the word can be broken at the end of a line, is not *comp- but com- . The surest way to discover the right syllable division is through a dictionary (most dictionaries show this along with a word’s pronunciation). However, there are a few rules that might help.

The most fundamental rule is that written syllables nearly always have a single clearly-spoken vowel (see 125. Stress and Emphasis, second section). Therefore, a group of consonants without a vowel is not a separate syllable: a word like strengths has only one syllable, ruling out divisions like streng- and -ths. Moreover, written vowels that are not separately spoken, such as “a” in repeats, do not make a separate syllable, and hence cannot be in their own word division: repe-ats is impossible.

Perhaps the greatest problem in deciding syllable divisions arises when there are two consonants between two spoken vowels, as in brother, stamping, accommodation, proclaim and plastic. There is not always a clear solution, but some rules can help.

Bro·ther, not *brot·her, is obviously correct because the “th” is a single sound (see 155. Silent Consonants). Stamp·ing is right rather than stam·ping because -ing is a recognizable unit, a common suffix (see 172. Multi-Use Suffixes). Accom·modation is divided as shown because double consonants are nearly always split in the middle. The way pro·claim is divided reflects the unitary nature of pro-, a preposition in the ancient European language Latin. Knowledge of Latin prepositions and verbs is not actually so difficult to acquire because English is full of them (see 45. Latin Clues to English Spelling). Plas·tic, on the other hand, illustrates the numerous words that are harder to judge.

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2. Compound Words

Some words can be divided into meaningful parts. If at least two of these parts are able in other contexts to be used by themselves, their combined use is likely to be a “compound”. An example is household (house + hold). On the other hand, if only one of the parts can make a word by itself, there is usually no compound. This is the case, for example, with strongest, where strong- can stand alone but -est cannot.

Some compounds have a hyphen between their meaningful parts, but many, like household, do not. Examples with hyphens are:

VERBS

speed-read, fast-forward, fine-tune

NOUNS

father-in-law, pie-chart, safe-deposit, tell-tale, world-beater

ADJECTIVES

high-grade, time-lapse, wishy-washy, sky-high, left-hand, mind-blowing, ever-present (see 272. Uses of “Ever”, #1), yellow-green (see 278. Colours, #6).

There do not appear to be many definite rules about when and when not to include a hyphen within a compound word. It is noticeable, however, that some words inside a hyphenated compound are also commonly used separately with different grammatical properties. For example, the verb fast-track matches the noun fast track, the noun tell-tale matches the verb expression tell tales (= betray secrets), and the noun a mix-up matches the phrasal verb mix up (though many compound nouns made from a phrasal verb lack a hyphen– see 249. Action Noun Endings).

Uncertainty about the need for a hyphen with frequently-occurring word combinations is made worse by the fact that English has many such combinations that, for no apparent reason, have to be written as separate words rather than as a compound. Examples are town hall, wish list, time travel and water cooler. The absence of hyphenation in water cooler is particularly surprising given its presence in such similar combinations as world-beater.

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3. Words with a Prefix or Suffix

The problem with prefixes and suffixes is again that the need for a hyphen is not always predictable. Ex- and non-, for example, are prefixes that always precede a hyphen (ex-manager, non-conformist), while un and dis never or rarely do (unusual, displeased). Trans-America versus transcontinental and mid-July versus midday illustrate variable usages.

Similarly, the suffixes in useful and happiness typically lack a hyphen, while those in cost-wise and child-like usually need one. For more prefix examples, see 146. Some Important Prefix Types; for more suffix ones, see 106. Word-Like Suffixes.

Again, a limited number of useful generalizations can be made. Prefixes ending in a vowel usually need a hyphen before another vowel, e.g. pre-existing, pre-industrial, re-evaluate, pro-active. Pseudo-prefixes (not preceding a possible English word, like super- in supervise – see 146. Some Important Prefix Types) never have a hyphen, while other prefixes, like super- in supernatural and super-heated, sometimes do. Trans- and mid- are hyphenated only before proper nouns (trans-Europe, trans-Himalaya, mid-Atlantic).

Suffixes that do not resemble independent words – as in going, called, discovery and lighten – never need a hyphen. Word-like suffixes seem to need one in about 50% of cases: other hyphenated examples are accident-prone, camera-shy and butter-rich. Non-hyphenated examples are workshy, advisable, fearsome and praiseworthy.

 

4. Multi-Word Descriptions of a Following Noun

Hyphenation often occurs between two or more words that together describe a noun after them. The words vary in their grammatical type, common combinations being:

A. Adjective + noun (six-page, low-carbon, spare-time)
B. Adjective + -ing (sour-tasting, good-looking)
C. Noun + -ing (house-hunting, leaf-eating, mind-blowing)
D. Adverb + -ing or -ed (fast-flowing, easily-recognised, well-known)
E. Preposition + noun (in-form, out-of-order, up-to-date)
F. Phrasal verb + -ed + phrasal-verb adverb (mixed-up, pressed-down, hemmed-in)
G. Noun + opposite or sequence noun (love-hate, subject-verb)
H. Noun + adjective (olive-green, sugar-free, garden-fresh)

Combination A does not include all adjective-noun uses before another noun. A hyphen tends to be necessitated by particular kinds of starting adjective, or by a need to clarify overall meaning. The starting adjective kinds that usually necessitate a hyphen include:

A1. Number words (six-page, four-star, hundred-year – see 136. Types of Description by Nouns, #4)
A2. Number words with -th (fourth-century, tenth-floor)
A3. Adjectives before a noun with -ed (red-blooded, bald-headed, many-sided – see 291. Subtleties of “-ed”, #7).

An exceptional non-hyphen use in category A1 is between number words and percent, e.g. a six percent increase (see 201. Words with Complicated Grammar 1, #2).

Unclear meaning can arise with adjective-noun descriptions of another noun because the adjective does not have to describe the noun directly after it – it can describe the second noun instead. For example, in important customer accounts, important could be describing either customers or accounts (see 124. Structures with a Double Meaning 1, #6). A hyphen after the adjective is an optional way of clearly linking the adjective with the first rather than second noun (important-customer accounts).

Combination B is quite rare because the participle is usually formed from the small number of verbs that need an adjective complement (for a list, see 220. Features of Complements, #2).

In combination C, the noun before an -ing verb is grammatically its object. There are two subtypes:

C1. Also usable without a hyphen as an ordinary noun phrase (e.g. House hunting is…). Other examples are note-making and water-skiing.

C2. Only usable as an adjective. For example, *Mind blowing is… would be unlikely. Other examples are fun-loving, leaf-eating and time-consuming.

It is likely that C1 expressions are gerunds (see 71. Gerund and Participle Uses of “-ing”), so that with a following noun they resemble nouns used like adjectives. The C2 kind are more like adjectives than participles (see 245. Adjectives with a Participle Ending, #8). For numerous additional C-type examples, see the end of 320. Special Participle Uses, #2.

Combination G is fairly infrequent. Other common “opposite” pairs like love-hate are stop-start and on-off. A “sequence” noun is one that works with another to express a real-world sequence, as in subject-verb agreement or number-letter combinations.

For more examples like olive-green in H, see 278. Colours, #8.

Combinations A1, A2 and G above can only go before a noun. The others can occupy other adjective positions. Most drop their hyphen there (e.g. …is up to date: see 114. Tricky Word Contrasts 3, #6). Those that keep their hyphen are of two main kinds. One is A3 (adjective + noun + -ed), e.g.:

(a) The structure is many-sided.

The other type of hyphen-keeping combination is fixed pairs ending in a verb with -ing or -ed (i.e. some of the combinations in groups B, C2 or D). Examples are good-looking, time-consuming and well-known. Being fixed, they feel more like compound words (similar to the adjectival ones listed in section 2 above, such as high-grade), which are also hyphenated in all sentence positions. For more about collocation, see 209. Fixed Phrases with “and”.

___________

[i] CARTER, R. & McCARTHY, M.  Cambridge Grammar of English.  Cambridge, CUP (p. 850).

222. Information Orders in Texts

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There are numerous ways of ordering written information, each depending on the kind of text it is in

THE PROBLEM OF ORDERING

Sequencing is an important feature of both words in a text and the information that they convey. Yet, whereas sequencing of words is often a matter of grammar (see 307. Word Order Variations), well-sequenced information simply makes a text coherent and readable. Without it, a text may be laborious to read, hard to understand, misleading or even illogical. Sometimes, there is a cultural dimension: a particular sequence may be preferred in English to an equally effective alternative preferred in another language. In these cases, using the alternative is perhaps like speaking good English with a non-English accent.

Unsuitable information orders are quite hard to avoid. One reason is that there is no widely-applicable guideline: there are numerous types of text, each needing to be ordered in its own particular way. Most learners of English will already know many of the possibilities, consciously or not, but there will probably be some that they are either unfamiliar with or unsure about. This likelihood is the main motivation for the present post, an attempt to survey the major possibilities.

Another cause of unsuitable sequencing is that just knowing the right way to order different types of information does not guarantee success. In addition, there is a need to manage what I would call the multi-task pressures of writing (see 202. Some Strategies for Learning English, Practice Strategy #1).

Information-ordering is only one of many tasks that need attention during writing, especially when the language is not our mother tongue. We must, for example, choose the information in the first place, show how it is related to other information (by such means as conjunctions, connectors and paragraph divisions), choose suitable vocabulary and grammar, avoid logical errors (see 170. Logical Errors in Written English), and record everything by manipulating a pen or keyboard. If all of these tasks are fighting for our attention at the same time, they can overwhelm our limited capabilities, so that some may fail to be dealt with.

To minimise the impact of the demands of writing on information ordering, I would recommend constant re-reading of what we are writing while we are writing it, in order to keep consciously monitoring the suitability of our text ordering.

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INFORMATION-ORDERING CONVENTIONS

1. Older in Time before Later

Presenting events in the order of their occurrence in time – chronological order – is typical of both narratives (stories, jokes, historical descriptions, news reports etc.) and general sequences (natural processes, laboratory procedures, recipes etc.). Its use is intuitive and does not present much difficulty. Two examples discussed within this blog are in 24. Good and Bad Repetition and 210. Process Descriptions.

One point to appreciate, however, is that chronological order is not compulsory in these text types, but can be broken at every level, from single actions to entire chapters: all can be presented out of order. However, the breaking of the natural order usually needs to be indicated by special language. For example, the word before and the verb tense with had can both show that an action mentioned after them is not in chronological order (see 171. Aspects of the Past Perfect Tense).

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2. Familiar before Unfamiliar

Writers do not expect everything in a text to be new to the reader (see 156. Mentioning what the Reader Knows Already). They may, for example, use a familiar idea in a comparison with a new one in order to make the latter easier to understand (see 149. Saying How Things are Similar). The reason why familiar ideas tend to be mentioned first is perhaps that this is believed to make the new information easier to appreciate. An example is:

(a) Most people know that islands are often formed by volcanic activity. The Canaries were formed in this way during the last 20 million years.

This sort of combination is not the same as example-giving, which also typically involves a class name followed by the name of a class member (see 1. Simple Example-Giving). The main difference is that in example-giving the generalization is not expected to be familiar to the reader (and hence would probably not include words like most people know).

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3. Brief before Lengthy

This tendency is common with lists whose order cannot be decided on any other basis. As the name indicates, it applies when items in the list have noticeably differing numbers of words. The preference for placing the wordier ones at the end of the list is probably related to the general preference in English to place wordy parts of a sentence last (cf. “end-weight” in 103. Commenting with “it” on a Later Verb).

There is an example of a list where “brief before lengthy” might apply in the Guinlist post 59. Paragraph Length. The list is a classification of “environmental pollutants”. A tree diagram shows four main classes of these, of which the first on the left (“airborne pollutants”) is obviously much wordier than the last two (“nuclear waste” and “rubbish”). A text that considered the wordy class first would probably sound strange.

The principle of “brief before lengthy” may apply not just to paragraph-length list items, but also to simple, sentence-based lists (see 55. Sentence Lists 2).

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4. Opinion before Evidence

An opinion is combined with supporting evidence in order make an argument, like this (opinion underlined):

(b) The Government should invest in solar energy. This does not harm the environment.

Placing the opinion first (“up front”), as shown here, is not compulsory but is common. This preference may be cultural rather than logical: conversations that I have had with speakers of other European languages than English indicate that the reverse order may be more common in many parts of Europe. For a full discussion of information ordering in arguments, see 167. Ways of Arguing 1 and 168. Ways of Arguing 2.

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5. Opposing Evidence/Argument before One’s Own

This order is generally recommended as a way of maximising the persuasiveness of one’s argument when an opposing argument also needs to be mentioned, for example in a “discuss” essay (see 94. Essay Instruction Words) or when a single opposing point is being questioned or counterbalanced (see 168. Ways of Arguing 2). It is based on the belief that people especially remember what they have seen most recently.

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6. General before Specific

There are various forms of this convention. In descriptions of simple visual phenomena like pictures, diagrams, structures and settings, it is common to start by summarising what can be seen. Typical expressions for doing this include:

The picture (etc.) shows…
This is a picture (etc.) of…
What could be seen was…
The scene resembled…

An abstract equivalent of this approach is common in the analysis of data. In interpreting values in a table, for example, one might begin with the most general possible conclusion that can be drawn. For an example of this, see 115. Surveying Numerical Data.

An alternative to summarising something visual is mentioning its most permanent aspect, as in the following example from 225. Simultaneous Occurrence:

(c) Snow lay on the ground. A wolf howled.

The snow referred to here is a background to something with a briefer existence that is described in the second sentence.

A third common type of a general-specific combination is a general class and all or some of its members. Naming all the members is “specification” (see 117. Restating Generalizations More Precisely). The members may be categories within the class, so that a classification is being given, or just individuals (see 162. Writing about Classifications). Naming only some class members is often example-giving (see 33. Complex Example-Giving), but perhaps includes combinations like (a) too.

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7. Pre-requisite Information First

Some ideas can only be understood after something else has been made clear first. A common one is solutions to a problem: you have to know what the problem is in order to fully understand the solution. Another example is exceptions to a rule: knowing the rule first makes it easier to understand how or why something is an exception (see 215. Naming Exceptions).

Sometimes, though, writers might go against this need to give pre-requisite information in order to add interest: it can be motivating, for example, to be informed of a solution and invited to guess the problem it solves.

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8. Like with Like

This order is recommended when two or more lists are being evaluated, for example arguments for and against, advantages versus disadvantages, or similarities versus differences. It means presenting each list in full without mixing its parts with those of another.

However, to recommend a choice out of three or more alternatives, listing the advantages and disadvantages of each one separately from those of the others is often preferable (see 277. Advantages & Disadvantages).

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PRACTICE EXERCISE: INFORMATION ORDERING

The following exercise is offered to assist appreciation of the above points. In addition, a worksheet (10. How to Plan an Essay) can be downloaded from the Learning Materials page.

Exercise

Each of the following describes one or more sentences in the first two paragraphs of this post, but in the wrong order. Decide the right order without looking at the paragraphs. Then check the paragraphs and the explanations below.

Identification of learning needs
Cause of the reason for information-ordering errors
Problems caused by unsuitable information orders
The aim of this post
The common error of unsuitable information order
A culture-related problem (+ comparison with pronunciation errors)
Definition of an unsuitable order
A reason for errors with information ordering

Explanations

The order in the paragraphs is not the only logical possibility, but is as follows:

1. The common error of unsuitable information order
2. Definition of an unsuitable order
3. Problems caused by unsuitable information orders
4. A culture-related problem (+ comparison with pronunciation errors)
5. A reason for errors with information ordering
6. Cause of the reason for information-ordering errors
7. Identification of learning needs
8. The aim of this post

A. Point 1 fits the start because it has general mentions of the main paragraph content (errors + ordering).

B. Point 2 could also start (prerequisite information), but would still need 3 and 4 to follow directly.

C. Point 8 is another possible starter, but following 7 better acknowledges the close link with it.

D. Point 4 should follow 3 because it is lengthier.

E. Points 5/6 are perhaps interchangeable: 5 first on chronological grounds, but 6 first as an opinion before evidence.

F. Point 7 must come late because it logically depends on most of the rest.