Compound adjective hyphenated?

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Anonymous  #283758  Sat, 21 Oct 06 04:48 AM
Help please!

Is it  upper-management-administrative support or  upper management administrative support?   ...and why?

Thank you

  
Grammar Geek  #283762  Sat, 21 Oct 06 05:13 AM

I would suggest no hyphens.

You use hyphens to clarify what could be ambiguous. "Upper management" is so well understood that the hyphens would be redundant. If you hyphenated "management" and "administrative" it would make it seem like a joint thing.

  
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