subject: Punctuation 101: When To Hyphenate Between Words [print this page] Punctuation 101: When To Hyphenate Between Words
Many people become confused about when there should be a hyphen between words. Inconsistency when using hyphenation can make your writing look unprofessional, so it is important to correctly use hyphens.
The main source of confusion over hyphenating between words centres around whether or not words like nearly, barely, newly etc should be followed by hyphens as in:
A newly-built house.
A barely-edible meal.
A nearly-complete project.
All of the above are, in fact, incorrect. Here's why:
Newly, barely and nearly are all adverbs which answer the questions When, How and Where (note that "where" covers adverbs of place such as "downstairs", "upstairs" etc.):
When was the new house built?
How edible was the meal? How complete is the project?
Because adverbs describe verbs and adjectives, they are not attached to those verbs or adjectives by a hyphen. Therefore, adverbs which are mostly ly words are not hyphenated:
A newly built house.
A barely edible meal.
A nearly completed project.
It is only the compound adjectives words that act as one idea with other adjectives that become hyphenated in front of nouns. The way to check this is to ask yourself if the word you believe needs hyphenating answers the How, When and Where questions. Here are a few examples:
She lives in a three-storey house.
She presented a well-written speech.
The word "three" does not answer the How, When or Where questions and instead acts as one idea with the word "storey" in order to describe the noun (house). "Three-storey" is, therefore, a compound adjective that must be hyphenated. Note that no hyphenation is required if the description follows the noun:
Her house has three storeys.
Her speech was well written.
Only hyphenate if the description precedes the noun, not if it follows the noun.
Other descriptions that act as one idea and a compound adjective and so require hyphens are:
He led a hand-to-mouth existence.
She gave a blow-by-blow account of the party.
He just bought a new four-wheel drive.
Time to take off the rose-tinted glasses!
He had a long-lasting affair with a middle-aged lady.
