Writing Topic Chapter 44 The hyphen Week 11

Writing Topic: Week 11-Hyphens

This is an interesting chapter for me.  I have always gone by instinct and put in a hyphen when I felt the need.  This chapter gave a very easy answer, look up the word in the dictionary or easier yet, a dictionary on the internet.  New technology is wonderful.  After reading the chapter it seems that hyphens are used less today than some years ago.

 If a writer has a compound word and they want to show a combined meaning or there is a relationship between the words that make up the compound, these words can be hyphenated, example, mother-in-law.  Use compounds in the following instances some of the time:  Compound adjectives, example, accident-prone, compound verbs, example, to ice-skate, or a phrasal verb made into a noun, example, break-in.  Also, hyphens can be used to divide a word at the end of a sentence if the writer runs out of room.  The split should be in a sensible place.  This does not seem to happen much anymore because of the “word programs”.   Hyphens are used with compound numbers.  Last, if the reader has a difficult time distinguishing the meaning of a word, example, re-cover and recover they should be used in the writing.

Instead of going on instinct, I will look up words in a dictionary to see if they need a hyphen.