To Hyphenate or Not to Hyphenate: A Head-Spinning Question

What is wrong with the following sentences?

It was a 30 page document in easy to read fonts. The 70 year old woman did not wobble, but walked straight.

It wouldn’t be surprising if you didn’t find anything wrong, because such sentences are commonplace. Yet, if you are serious about writing, please note that you have to hyphenate certain multi-word adjectives. ‘30 page’ is a single word, an adjective, that modifies the word ‘document’ and has to be written as ‘30-page document in easy-to-read fonts’. Similarly, replace ‘70 year old woman’ with ‘70-year-old woman’.

Of course, this holds only for the adjectives that precede the noun, and not for those that are used predicatively.

You have read my thought-provoking articles. She is a well-known actress.

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Yes, my articles are thought provoking. The actress is well known.

You get the difference between the two usages, don’t you?

Here’s another example: She has a I-don’t-care attitude.

Exceptions:

• Compound adjectives formed with an adverb ending in -ly and a participle or other adjective should not be hyphenated.

He is a widely recognized cricketer.

The economy is in a bad shape because of the rapidly increasing population.

The newly free country would need time before it can be truly independent.

• Do not hyphenate adjectives with a comparative/superlative degree

The oldest surviving member of the community is hundred years old.

• Common, long and unambiguous adjectives need not be hyphenated

Tips/Rules on using hyphens:

• For specifying fractions and directions, you need to use a hyphen

You need a two-thirds majority to win the election.

The building is in the south-west direction.

• Hyphenate all compound numbers from twenty-one through ninety-nine and all fractions that you spell out.

You need two-third majority to win.

• Compound adjectives of the form number-unit are always hyphenated:

5-liter container, 28000-bps modem, three-feet-high pole, 1000-odd people, one-inch margin, by-the-hour room rentals

• Prefixes like pre-, post-, over-, under-, pro-, anti-, re-, un-, non-, semi-, co-, pseudo-, intra-, extra-, infra-, ultra-, sub-, super-, supra- are generally hyphenated, especially if the word that follows is a proper name or number (anti-Semitic, post-2000), or if the word that follows begins with the same vowel that the prefix ends in (re-election, post-training).

• Compound words formed with all, half, like, self, wide, multi are also hyphenated.

God is all-knowing and all-seeing. He was only half-awake when she arrived. He is a young, self-employed man. There was a university-wide strike by the students.

There are always exceptions: for example, halfhearted/ halfway. Check the dictionary or the organization’s style guide for help.

• Compound words with “fold” are not hyphenated, but if a numeric figure is to be compounded, hyphens become necessary

We expect a threefold increase in the prices. So we want a 5-fold increase in the salary.