How To Use Hyphens (Hint: Avoid)
I have some issues with hyphens. I am, at best, skeptical of them, which is no doubt a prejudice borne of ignorance concerning their usage. I most frequently fuck them up when it comes to modifiers, hyphenating that which should not be joined together and leaving asunder those words which do indeed require a connection. I would probably be happier if we got rid of hyphenation altogether, but I think we need at least another 20 years of texting and whatever comes after to totally destroy standard punctuation, at which point it will be too late for me. Anyway, here's a couple of pointers on hyphens from the associate managing editor for standards at the New York Times who, while not sharing my bias toward their complete eradication, does at least seem dubious in certain cases. Bite me, hyphens!
Wilson Follett thinks you're an "incompetent amateur," Balk. Go get 'im!
I lost my hyphen on the monkey bars.
It doesn't count if you were drunk.
So turned on right now.
You could… like Louis Ferdinand Celine!… use ellipses everywhere!… and also exclamation points! …yes!!… who needs those bastard hyphens anyway… little hyphenated mediocrities!… fuck them… those little comma thugs too! …fuck all of them… to hell!!!
I plead guilty. My only excuse is years of writing for TV. The ellipses help explain how you want copy read….and I can't quit them!!!111!!!!
oh wow, this really clears something up for me! I have a good friend who worked in broadcast editing and he often writes the same way… and now i finally know why.
I really, really, really hate ellipses. I just had to say that.
I, too, am disgruntled by hyphens. Annoyingly, the default setting for text boxes in In Design is with hyphenation. I am even more annoyed at having to turn off this feature than I am by the hyphens.
M-dashes, on the other hand, are fine and beautiful things.
I do love the em-dash, but HATE when people used hyphens in their place. Not the same goddamn thing.
seriously-they feel like loving caresses
You can change this default by turning hyphens off once, before opening a document.
I agree about em-dashes. Love 'em.
Folks who use two hyphens in place of an em dash-along with their brethren, the folks who use two spaces after a period-should be banned from writing.
Strongly agree on all of the above. Also en dashes. Just sayin', in some fonts the em dash is just too overbearing.
@boyofdestiny, I do not concur. Two hyphens for an em dash IS SO MUCH WORSE than two spaces after a period. Seriously.
Yes! There is only one space–and en-dash–after a period. Never two, unless you're using an old school typewriter.
I'm apt to agree, pattycakes, if only because the two hyphens thing is a byproduct of our ever-increasing reliance on autoformatting. Two hyphens is what happens when the machines take over.
You guys know that the two hypens, two spaces thing is for the olds, right? They learned to write before the machines took over, and had no em-dash on their selectric.
I was making a Terminator 2 reference, but maybe I should have been making a Soylent Green reference?
@badthings yeah, but the super olds, who learned how to set type in lead, got that shit right: one space, ens and ems. All of that comes from type cast in lead.
Late to the party, but also in love with em dashes. My [old-school] boss insists on double spaces after periods and it's all I can do not to leave his laptop out the window.
heave his laptop. Ergh.
Save the Hyphen!
I really, really, really love hyphens. I just had to say that.
Well, no, I really don't. I don't have many feelings about hyphens. It's em dashes I really, really, really love and had to talk about.
Can you do a follow up on the colon, semi-colon (semi colon) and ……
Though….I will never be able to ween myself off….
I am the King of semi-colons; undeniable.
The most feared punctuation on earth.
I use hyphens as a way to stave off the germanization (or deutschefication) of the English language. If you let "third-party" turn into thirdparty next thing you know we'll have words like 'Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz'.
Scary thoughts people. Keep using those hypens!
stuffitallintherelikeasausagewhocaresrightwhatsonemoresyllable
VS.
I-want-my-cucumber-sandwich-sliced-into-itty-bitty-neat-and-tidy-little-pieces!
Though the sci-fi affectation of internal capitalization of FormerlyHyphenated words could also keep the Deutsch at bay.
SciFi slash DFW, now that I think of it.
dont h8te on tha hi-fen
I am so tired of all of these do-this-thing-but-not-that-thing posts. Here: do this thing (makes obscene hand gesture)! I do hope I didn't omit any standard punctuation; I would be sad.
Balk–Emily Dickinson hates you right now.
Emily Dickinson hates everybody.
Well, yes, New England and all.
including herself
Virgins are, to be sure, exempt from the rules of grammar.
@kneetoe: it's not so much that we New Englanders hate everything, insomuch as we hate anything sub-par or culturally inferior; which is everything.
@HG: No, you're just crusty. And underneath your crustiness is more layers of crusty.
(Actually, my wife's from Connecticut and has a decent amount of New England in her, so needless to say I'm a big fan of the region.)
@Goons: But the rest of us are supposed to just looooooooooove This Old House, right? That Kevin is such a poseur. Not worthy of the plaid!
I hope you all know I'm really not a prick, I just play one on the internet.
'has a decent amount of New England in her'
So I'm to take it you hail from New England as well?
@HiredGoons: I started with an earnest "no I'm from Tennessee," then I got it. A little slow, but I'll get there eventually.
I'll play spokesperson for Awl commenters and say, no, no one thinks you're a prick or anything even close to it. Big dick, sure, but that's another story.
@HiredGoons:
oh look, another GAMBREL-ROOF.
(i kid, i kid.)
I love, I love.
(I do not love).
.. .—-. .-.. .-.. / ..- … . / .- .-.. .-.. / – …. . / –. — -.. -.. .- — -. / …. -.– .–. …. . -. … / .. / .– .- -. – –..– / -… .- .-.. -.- .-.-.- / -.– — ..- .—-. .-. . / -. — – / – …. . / -… — … … / — ..-. / — . .-.-.-
I'm out on my balcony. Can you repeat in semaphore?
- …. .- – .—-. … .– …. .- – … …. . … .- .. -..
ÊŽuoɔןÉq ɹnoÊŽ ɯoɹɟ buıbuÉÉ¥ ɯ,ı
ï¦ïµï£ï« ï€ ï¡ï¬ ï€ ï´ï¨ï© ï³ï€ ï³ï´ïµï°ï©ï¤ï€ ï¨ï¹ ï°ï¨ï¥ï®ï¡ï´ï©ï¯ï®!!!!
who wants to buy a vowel?
Ok. How DID you DO that!
My previous questions was to SYH. Fuck this "reply" bullshit. As if we have choices. Or free will.
˙ɥsıɹı 'uoısnןןı uÉ sı ×Ÿ×ŸÄ±Ê ÇÇɹɟ
@irishbreakfast, use with care :)
Oh, now you're all just being mean. This is one of those "back end of the WordPress" things, isn't it? Perverts.
@SYH: ¿ʇnoqÉ Ê‡sod sıɥʇ sÉÊ Ê‡ÉÉ¥Ê :Êou ˙ʎןʞɔınb ʎɹÇÊŒ puÉÉ¥ ÉŸo ʇno ʇÇb pןnoÉ” sıɥʇ Çɹns ʎʇʇÇɹd ɯ,ı ¡ÉÉ¥
This all brings up an interesting point. Are there really people out there who can't read upside down?
duh, dyslexics.
marvy idea! pls also include that vs which, the split infinitive and exclamation point points!!!!!!!!!!!
Nerd
Here's something even more annoyingly schoolmarmish: According to the Chicago Manual of Style, we should use the en dash in place of a hyphen when there are two or more "open compounds" or "hyphenated compounds" in a "compound adjective." Cute, no? It's such an obscure rule, I don't think I've ever seen it in use. Anyone?
I use this quite frequently. It's when you have a multi-word phrase that's treated as a single term, describing another term. So like, "Nobel Prize-winning physicist," where "Nobel Prize" is a single term with multiple words in it.
Sorry. Being nit-picky about dashes is the only way I can prove to people that I have an even remotely marketable skill.
Of course, en dashes in this typeface look really wide, rendering my point all the less persuasive.
That's why I use a Greasemonkey script to format everything I read on the Internet in Adobe Premier Pro Garamond.
It's impossible to read Perez Hilton when the typeface doesn't reflect the clarity of a sixteenth-century philosophical treatise.
For my job, I actually created a guidelines document called "When To Hyphenate Compound Modifiers."
It was two pages long, and based the hyphen/no-hyphen choice on the parts of speech contained in the compound. For example, if a compound modifier contained only nouns, no hyphen should be used. However, if the compound contained an adjective or non-"ly" adverb, the hyphen was necessary. This was based on the potential for ambiguity caused by the parts of speech used in unhyphenated compounds.
So yeah, I'm pretty much a fucking lunatic.
A lunatic would be more fun to have a conversation with. I think you're just a plain-old nerd.
Where is Moff, by the way? I feel like having a big ol' comment-fight with him over this.
"Comment-fight"? I'd go with "comment fight," just like "baseball game." Or were you intending those as comment-fighting words.
Glad I don't have a dog in this fight. Wouldn't want to back the wrong horse!
I'm more interested in doing away with the umlauts in words like "cooperate" and "reenact." A modern magazine continuing to use those antiquated dots irritates the same region of my soul that steampunk chafes.
That unnamed magazine, love it as I do, has the most pretentious style sheet ever.
And by "umlaut," you mean "diaeresis."
An additional reason I support doing away with it: so I never again embarrass myself be not knowing what it is called.
Isn't 'diaeresis' when your kidneys fail?
Only if you're in Tokyo…
@ejc: Bless! That is the only time I have ever laughed at an r/l joke.
I'm a chronic overhyphenator.
hypherventilating!
*reaches for brown-paper sack (you see what I did there).
It's best to curtail your hyphenatory behavior before your folios go blind.
What are you, some kind of real-balling-overstalling-mingo-linguist-hurting-for-attention-lost-in-detention-Diego-Garcia-islander-without-a-clue-as-to how-it-all-works-it's-all-hyphens-you-know-they-make-the-world-hold-together.
(Actually freestyled except for the mispelling of "attention")