Accordingly, George Orwell's sixth rule of effective writing was to "Break any of [the previous five] rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous."

I believe that this is fairly barbarous in style terms:

"Contrary to popular belief, creative tendencies are evenly spread throughout right- and left-handed populations."

I prefer:

"Contrary to popular belief, creative tendencies are evenly spread throughout right and left-handed populations."

So I've checked out a few style guides (the few that are available online) and can't seem to find any support for the view! Does anyone know of any authority to back me up when I say I'd much rather omit the hanging/suspended/dangling hyphen?

I know in most circumstances I could rearrange the sentence to avoid the issue, but in this case I'm talking trancript, so it has to be as the person said it.

Thanks,
Tom