Free Grammar Help—When to use a hyphen

By Peter J. Francis, HGPublishing Editor

One question that I'm often asked is when to use a hyphen? Hyphens are shifty little beggars whose use constantly changes. If there's one character in grammar who demonstrates the constantly evolving nature of the English language it's the hyphen. Do not use a hyphen with two words that normally can stand alone, such as thank you. Do use a hyphen with a compound adjective such as year-old. Sometimes use a hyphen with non-. What? Sometimes? What the heck? Well, the British tend to favour the use of a hyphen and Americans tend to favor the word without a hyphen. Think of it this way: non-Americans vs Americans. We Canadians just live in confusion.

Grammarians often do not agree on when to use hyphens. There are probably fist fights (or fist-fights) outside grammar conventions over the use of hyphens because grammarians can argue like three-year-olds. Researching this article, I found many different opinions. I recently read a blog that stated, following the Chicago rules of style, that hyphens are only used for adjectives that form a single meaning to modify a noun. The example given was "nearly extinct wolves." The argument is that "nearly" modifies "extinct," and "extinct" modifies "wolves." I left a comment stating that Fowler's Modern English usage suggests hyphens for any place where meaning is made clearer. I think that "nearly-extinct wolves" is a much clearer concept: these are wolves that are nearly extinct.

But we also use hyphens to form compound words that are not yet accepted as single words. For example the game baseball was once called “base ball.” Then it became “base-ball.” Finally, today we call it baseball.  There’s no confusion about it now, so we don't need a hyphen. What there is confusion about is whether a compound is accepted today or needs a hyphen. Even if I could give you an exhaustive list today, it would start becoming out of date tomorrow. Even my grammar checker will flag something as needing a hyphen, then when I put in the hyphen, it flags it as not needing a hyphen! Arrgh!

There are three basic rules for usage of hyphens.

Rule 1: hyphens are used to make the meaning more clear. We can use them to join two or more words that serve as a single adjective before a noun.

Example: blue-green algae or wide-bodied jet. I don't see the difference between wide-bodied jet and nearly-extinct wolves. (Except when I'm hiking in the woods, or want to go to Florida on vacation.)

Rule 2: We can use a hyphen to avoid mixing up words with similar words. An example would be
re-create (to begin anew) instead of recreate (take a vacation.)

Rule 3: We use a hyphen with compounds with the prefix “self,” “ex,” “all” etc.

Do I seem self-important? My ex-wife certainly thinks so.