Hyphens

What is a Hyphen?

Hyphens are a tool that allows a sentence to be more easily read and understood

Where Did Hyphens Come From?

Hyphens are thought to have been around since 170 BCE and are credited to Dionysius Thrax, the author of the first grammatical Greek text. Johannes Gutenberg used our modern hyphen when he published his bible in 1455.

Vernacular is always changing: high-school, ice-cream, bumblebee, and twentieth-century used to be hyphenated, but not anymore!

 

How Do You Use a Hyphen?

Some Good Rules to Follow:

  1. Don’t use a hyphen when an en or em dash is required.

  2. Adverbs ending in -ly are not hyphenated.

    • Note: This rule only applies to adverbs (slowly, quickly), not all words ending in -ly. (family, jolly)

When to Use Hyphens:

To Join Two Words Together When They Modify a Noun

Hyphens placed between two words can modify nouns into adjectives. Keep in mind that when the modified comes after the noun, no hyphen is used.

When Using Prefixes

Hyphens should be used with prefixes.

With Compound Numbers From Twenty-One to Ninety-Nine and Fractions

Hyphens must be used between numbers greater than twenty but less than one hundred and in fractions.

To Reduce Confusion

Hyphens are placed between two words that have a different meaning together than when standing alone.

References

  1. Nicolas, Nick, “Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation,” Archive Today, Accessed August 7, 2021.

  2. “Hyphen Use.” Owl Purdue Writing Lab, Accessed May 7, 2021. https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/hyphen_use.html

  3. “Hyphens.” Grammar Book, Accessed May 7, 2021. https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp

  4. Rabinovitch, Simon, “Thousands of Hyphens Perish as English Marches On”, Reuters, September 21, 2007.  https://mobile-reuters-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSHAR15384620070921?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQHKAFQArABIA%3D%3D#aoh=16202355964500&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2Fus-britain-hyphen-1-idUSHAR15384620070921

  5. “En Dash (En Rule).” Grammarist, Accessed May 11, 2021. https://grammarist.com/grammar/en-dash/

  6. Turton, Stuart. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2019.

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This page was published February 22, 2022.