
The Hyphen Affair - samclemens
https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/09/associated-press-style-changes-explained.html
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chasing
Good writing is a form user experience design. Do what you feel you must.
Adopt a personal style and some flair. Use punctuation as you wish. But know
that the goal is (generally) clarity and communication, not blind adherence to
any specific rule.

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joshuaheard
"'If a hyphen makes the meaning clearer, use it. If it just adds clutter and
distraction to the sentence, don’t use it,' it now reads."

I would say the test is whether it makes your writing easier to read. I use it
when I want to link the two adjectives together, so the reader knows one
adjective refers to the other and not to the noun, for instance, "ice-cold
beer".

~~~
DonHopkins
Which is clearer: ;) or ;-) ?

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robbrown451
One argument against requiring the hyphen in such situations ("first-quarter
touchdown", "emergency-room visit") is that doing so encourages constructions
that are ambiguous if spoken aloud. Since the hyphen never makes it into
speech, you end up relying too much on the punctuation to convey meaning.

Note that certain punctuation is often spoken aloud for instance people often
say "quote" (and maybe "unquote"). Other punctuation such as exclamation point
and comma can affect how it is spoken. Technically you can speak very slowly
and group words together and use a bit of accenting to indicate how words are
grouped, but still.

I generally don't use a hyphen unless it is absolutely needed to make it
clear. I find them kind of ugly and can break the flow.

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mattlutze
The hyphens in compound modifiers often (usually? I suppose it depends on the
person) do get spoken. It's common to speed up speaking cadence or change
breathing or pauses through a set of compound modifiers to indicate which are
associated and which are distinct.

Aesthetic tastes aside, it should be all about having the maximum chance to
transfer the writer's thought into the reader's head, and it's cool if AP are
finding not having to hyphenate still gets the job done. If nothing else, it
can be really difficult to squeeze longer hyphenated phrases into paper
columns and such.

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sdenton4
I expected this to be about Dear Leader's recent tweet:

"To show you how dishonest the LameStream Media is, I used the word Liddle’,
not Liddle, in discribing Corrupt Congressman Liddle’ Adam Schiff. Low ratings
@CNN purposely took the hyphen out and said I spelled the word wrong. A small
but never ending situation with CNN!"

This, of course, being the perfect time to open a new front in the grammar
wars.

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DonHopkins
A hyphen is kind of like infix-parenthesis / (infix parenthesis) for grouping
words together tighter than spaces.

