Mechanics and Punctuation/Hyphens

Hyphens

Learning how to use hyphens correctly in your writing tends to be more difficult than learning how to use the other basic punctuation mechanics outlined here. You most commonly need to use hyphens when you use adjectives to modify the meaning of words that they come immediately before.

For example, the second sentence below contains a modifying adjective:

1) The hot Bunsen burner melted a nearby eraser.

2) The white hot Bunsen burner melted a nearby eraser.

Without a hyphen (as above), you would think the Bunsen burner was white in colour. The author, however, likely means the Bunsen burner was very, very hot, so you need to use a hyphen to make a compound word, like this:

3) The white-hot Bunsen burner melted a nearby eraser.

There are occasions when you need to use more than one hyphen (when you link three or more words, like ‘We dug a seven-foot-deep hole in the garden’). In all cases, when deciding whether you need to use hyphens, assess whether the meaning of your sentences would be the same without your hyphens. If it would, then you don’t need them. This is usually true when you use words ending in y to modify other words. For example, you don’t need a hyphen between ‘happily’ and ‘married’ in the following sentence, because the meaning would be the same:

We are a happily married couple = We are a happily-married couple.