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I can't find a source that explains what I thought I understood many years ago. The question deals with joining an adverb and an adjective with a hyphen before the noun, but not afterward: the freshly-cut lawn smells great ~ the lawn is freshly cut he is a highly-admired admiral ~ the admiral is highly admired. Now, someone whom I respect has told me that this is true only with "well": the well-known actress is crazy ~ the actress is well known for her crazy antics. Any thoughts from punctuation experts? Hi Philip If you google "compound adjectives", you should be able to find a number of sources. Even Wikipedia has a bit of information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound Scroll down to "Compound Hyphenated Adjectives" and then down to the part headed with "The following compound adjectives are not normally hyphenated:" Some additional sources are: http://www.writersrelief.com/July06.html http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000127.htm http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publications/pubs/td/1064/td1064f.html http://www.getitwriteonline.com/archive/042703.htm The sites I've found all seem to agree on the matter of hyphenation (none) for an -ly adverb + participial adjective that precede a noun.  Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain I've read that in modern usage, hyphens are not required when adverbs ending in -ly are used with adjectives. the freshly cut lawn smells great ~ the lawn is freshly cut he is a highly admired admiral Another thing I observe is the removal of hyphens, as in the following: a 4 year old child  Veteran Member 7,005 I haven't noticed that at all (except when one of my students makes an error  ).Where have you seen these unhyphenated four-year-olds, YL? I doubt very much that "a 4 year old child" (i.e. unhyphenated) would be accepted in formal writing, and I would also expect to see the hyphens even in informal writing. Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain I haven't noticed that at all (except when one of my students makes an error ).Where have you seen these unhyphenated four-year-olds, YL? I doubt very much that "a 4 year old child" (i.e. unhyphenated) would be accepted in formal writing, and I would also expect to see the hyphens even in informal writing. [/quote] My student took his exam recently and the comprehension passage was taken from the Readers' Digest, an American publication, if I'm not wrong. In the passage was the phrase mentioned above. So I told my student that nowadays the hyphens are disappearing from such phrases. I have seen such a phrase used before in other publications. The 4 Year Old Child "Energetic" and "imaginative" best describe the 4-year-old. ... The average three and a half year old knows more than 1200 words. ... www.allthedaze.com/4.html - 23k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this Tests of reading regular and irregular words, pseudowords, homographic heterophones, single sentences and texts were carried out. Performance on a variety ... tabletpceducation.blogspot.com/2006/ Veteran Member 7,005 Hi YL The one example you gave seems to be a headline, and I suppose a headline-writer might want to dispense with the hyphens since headlines look "cleaner" or "less busy" without multiple hyphens. Headlines tend to minimize and/or eliminate things anyway. And I can also imagine why an author might decide not to hyphenate "three and a half year old" -- five hyphens in a row is not something you see very often in English.  To me, however, these examples seem to reflect specific, individual decisions rather than widespread usage. . Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain Hi Amy My student took his exam recently and the comprehension passage was taken from the Readers' Digest,an American publication. In the passage was thephrase '4 year old child' (not hyphenated). So I told my student that nowadays the hyphensare disappearing from such phrases. I have seen such a phrase usedbefore in other publications. Let's ignore the website. Veteran Member 7,005 Hi YL Of course I'm familiar with RD -- I've even worked there. Without knowing more about the RD excerpt you're referring to, I can't possibly comment on it. I can tell you what my own observations are and what my own opinion is. And what I can also do is show you plenty of RD articles containing hyphenated versions (*-year-old): http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=17847 (scroll down to "A True Fire Story") http://www.rd.com/content/let-parenthood-strengthen-your-marriage/4 / http://www.rd.com/content/the-brooke-ellison-story/4/ http://www.rd.com/content/toddler-brain-surgery-miracle/4/ http://www.rd.com/content/christopher-reeve-a-hero-onscreen-and-off/ I did my search directly on the RD website (http://www.rd.com/ / ) and even though I did not include the hyphens in my search, hyphenated words were the only versions to be found in the first 5 search results. I didn't feel like looking at more of the over 350 results because I think the first 5 results are quite representative enough. Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain More
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