By Hyphens

Hi,Please take a look at this.... involved with modern, western "come every two hours and sit in the room."I am pretty sure you can treat "come every two hours and sit in the room" like an uncountable noun.Can I make it a countable noun like this?Everyday, a "come every...

Hi,I think I have seen more than enough cases where what people call a verbal noun has the indefinite article 'a' in front of it and at the very least, the sheer number (should it be - sheer numbrs??) of it warrants some good explanations from experts in this forum. I think I can laid out...

words are combined to form a modifier immediately preceding a noun, join the words by hyphens if doing so will significantly aid the reader in recognizing the compound adjective". This leaves it to the writer's judgement to decide whether there is any significant risk of confusion...

developing is a present participle. Do those ever attach to the following word with a hyphen?I guess my tendency is not to use hyphens any more than necessary. "fussy", as you say. My advice is for the writer to follow whatever style manual he or she feels comfortable with if the...

Sure, but dictionaries don't tell you when (or if) you should hyphenate compound modifiers. For example, "developing world" is not normally hyphenated, and wouldn't be shown as such in any dictionary, and yet I would certainly hyphenate "developing-world problems"...

Always consult a dictionary to find out if a compound is hyphenated or written as one word or written as multiple words. If it is a not listed there, it probably should not take a hyphen. This would be the case for the majority of multiple component compounds. They are written without hyphens.CJ

Hi,I think I have seen more than few cases where people did not hyphenate those words with multiple nouns and people reading them seemed to take the practice as normal. Is it normal, acceptable or correct (possibly)?public library staff meeting Why not? public-library staff meeting (is it...

Strictly speaking, to indicate date ranges (or numerical ranges) you should use a en dash, not a hyphen. If you use a dash then you should not use "to" as well. As far as "from" is concerned, I personally don't like the style "from January 2 - March 1". If think...

Hi,I think it is correct to say that the words "from" and "to" are not needed (should not be used??) when a hyphen is used to note the duration like these:The meetings will be held Jan. 2 - March 1. (I don't think we need to write it as Jan. 2nd - March 1st. Or do...

Hi,The two fluffy pillows sit at the upper side on the bed / at the head of the bed; they remind me of the pillow fights I had, with my best friend, (friend's name), who often came for chitchat and study. Should Comma would be applied here? No. 'Chit-chat' has a hyphen.Don't use...