compound noun - hyphenate?

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Anonymous

#545127 Tue, 22 Jul 08 11:12 PM

Hi,

I think Mr. M said something to the effect that when two or more nouns are used as a compound noun, there should be no need to hyphenate.

Case I use to ask a question in a previous post:
A pencil that can also be used as an eraser:

I want to have a pencil eraser (or pencil-eraser??).

For this, I think Mr. M said he preferred a non-hyphenated version.

Fine, but how tight a relationship has to be between the nouns used has to be in order to use a hyphen to connect them both?

This might not be a preferred example to use but what is the difference between this and the above?

a she-male

Anonymous

Difference between, Hyphens, Nouns

Mister Micawber

#545456 Wed, 23 Jul 08 02:17 PM

.
You may want someone else to respond for a change, but let me say that my prime concern when considering hyphenation is whether the hyphen is needed to make sense of the relationship of the two nouns between themselves and within the context of the greater noun phrase.

Mister Micawber

Joined on Wed, Aug 4 2004

Yokohama

Veteran Member (22,347)

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master-- that's all.'

Hyphenation, Hyphens, Noun phrases, Nouns

Cool Breeze

#545474 Wed, 23 Jul 08 02:58 PM

Mr M's reasoning makes a lot of sense. There are lots of style guides and they all have their recommendations as to hyphenation. There is no one authority that has the final word on correct usage. Perhaps you should stop worrying about details like hyphenation. I'm sure you'll learn to hyphenate the words that are invariably hyphenated.

Incidentally, one difference between pencil eraser and she-male ( Tongue Tied whatever it means...) is that pencil is a noun, she is a pronoun.