How to use hyphens correctly

1. What is a hyphen?

To be clear, I’m talking about the punctuation mark that’s a short horizontal line: –

You might call this a dash, but a hyphen is not technically a dash! Dashes are longer horizontal lines known as an en dash (–) or an em dash (—) and they serve different functions. We’ll talk about them in another post.

What are hyphens used for?

Let’s start with an overview of what hyphens do. You might be surprised to find that they have quite a diverse skill set.

Hyphens are used to:

• – form compound words
• – form compound adjectives that modify nouns
• – add prefixes to words (and suffixes)
• – connect names
• – connect numbers
• – indicate stuttering or spelled-out words

So, yeah. It’s a lot.

Hyphens in compound words

Did you know that words like tomorrow, teenager and notebook were once hyphenated? Yep, they were really spelled like this:

• to-morrow
• teen-ager
• note-book

Weird, right? Over time, they’ve evolved to become one word, no hyphen necessary.

But when we’re still getting used to the idea of two or more words becoming one, we often use a hyphen (or hyphens) to form a single unit. For example:

• six-pack
• brother-in-law
• a two-year-old
• double-check

Not all dictionaries agree on the state of play for hyphens in compound words, so it’s always best to check your relevant dictionary or style guide. For instance, the Macquarie Dictionary prefers wellbeing as one word, but the Merriam-Webster Dictionary lists it with a hyphen: well-being. And to make matters more confusing, some compound words are left permanently ‘open’ – no hyphen. Think real estate, living room, washing machine and iced tea.

Using hyphens to create compound adjectives that modify nouns

This is my favourite use of the hyphen – connecting two or more words that modify a noun.

The main reason we use hyphens in this way is to avoid ambiguity. As an editor, I’m always striving to make writing clear so the reader can absorb its meaning without stopping to reread the sentence. Great writing is kind of invisible – you’re not thinking what does that mean? as you read, you’re just taking it in. Even a moment’s confusion can disrupt a reader and pull them out of a story, and that’s why punctuation marks like the hyphen are a writer’s best friend. It’s a tiny bit of punctuation doing a big job.

For instance, if you wrote:

• He demanded that they provide more experienced staff next time.

And you meant that he was demanding different staff who had more experience than the noobs who have just filled the role, rather than an extra number of staff with the same level of experience, you would use a hyphen to make that meaning instantly clear:

• He demanded that they provide more-experienced staff next time.

The hyphen shows that more and experienced are working together to modify the word staff.

Or perhaps your character wanted to convey how many people were at an event in a casual way. You could write:

• ‘Oh, I’d say there were about thirty-odd people there.’

If you left out the hyphen – thirty odd people – your character would be describing the people who attended the event as odd, rather than giving a rough sense of how many showed up.

Regardless of ambiguity and absurdity, we still hyphenate compound adjectives before a noun. Here are some more examples:

• We went to the five-star hotel
• She had golden-brown hair
• He is a seventeen-year-old boy
• The adults-only pool
• An impossible-to-find address

Note that when the sentence construction is flipped so that the modifying words come after the noun, they don’t require hyphens:

• The hotel had five stars
• Her hair was golden brown
• The boy is seventeen years old
• The pool is for adults only
• The address was impossible to find

Hyphens with adverbs ending in -ly

Before you get excited and start adding hyphens to compound modifiers everywhere, a word of caution: you don’t need to use a hyphen between adverbs ending in -ly and the word they are modifying. For example:

• Wrong: A beautifully-designed home
• Right: A beautifully designed home

• Wrong: The gently-loved toy
• Right: The gently loved toy

• Wrong: A happily-married couple
• Right: A happily married couple

This is because adverbs used in this way are pretty much impossible to misinterpret, so adding a hyphen here is considered a hypercorrection (a ‘correction’ that adds an error). Not all words ending in -ly are adverbs, though. For example, family-friendly event is hyphenated because family is a noun, not an adverb.

Hyphens with long phrasal adjectives

What about when you have a long phrase – more than three words – modifying a noun?  There are a few ways of treating these, and it’s up to you how you’d like to approach it. Personally, I prefer hyphens, but quote marks or italics can also work, especially if it’s a particularly long phrase. Here’s what I mean:

• She wore a don’t-mess-with-me expression
• I clocked her do not go there look
• The old house had a ‘someone definitely died here’ feel

Hyphens with prefixes

Let’s talk about the other headache in the writer’s studio: prefixes. We use a hyphen for clarity when adding the prefix doubles or triples a vowel or consonant:

• co-opt
• re-examine
• bell-like
• pre-eminent
• anti-inflammatory

(Although, not always. Some words are well known enough that they no longer use a hyphen, like cooperate and coordinate. Always check your dictionary if you’re unsure.)

A hyphen is also used with a prefix to help us distinguish between words that are spelled the same way but have a different meaning. For example:

• re-creation / recreation
• re-cover / recover
• un-ionise / unionise
• re-sign / resign

You should always use a hyphen with the prefix ‘ex-’:

• ex-president
• ex-boyfriend
• ex-employee

And when using ‘self’ as a prefix:

• self-satisfied
• self-employed
• self-absorbed

• non-porous
• non-event
• non-hyphenated (I know!)

Hyphens with numbers

Another use case for hyphens is in numbers 21–99 when written out as words:

• twenty-one
• eighty-three
• two hundred and ninety-nine

They’re also used to join parts of a fraction when written as words:

• two-thirds
• one-quarter

Use hyphens with numbers as figures or words when they’re forming a compound adjective. For example:

• A 17-year-old boy
• Take a 10-minute break / take a ten-minute break
• A two-storey building  
• The 44-room hotel / the forty-four-room hotel

What about when referring to height? Perhaps you want to describe your characters’ height in feet. Generally, this doesn’t require hyphens:

• He stood tall at six foot two
• She was all of five foot nothing

But, remember the rule about compound adjectives modifying a noun:

• A six-foot-two man
• The five-foot-nothing woman was angry
• She wore four-inch heels

Hyphens in names

Do all double-barrelled last names require a hyphen? No. This is up to the individual, even if other family members use the hyphen, so always check if you’re referring to a real person:

• Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
• Helena Bonham Carter
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus
• Kristin Scott Thomas

The same applies to first names. Consider:

• Mary-Anne / Maryanne
• John-Paul / John Paul

Hyphens to indicate stuttering and spelling

Finally, let’s talk about a use case for hyphens that often crops up in fiction. This is when you want to show your character stuttering, stammering or stumbling in their speech. You can use hyphens to illustrate their faltering dialogue by placing them between repeated sounds, like this:

• ‘I-I-I didn’t s-s-see that, sir,’ he spluttered.
• ‘Sh-sh-she said so!’

Note that you don’t need to repeat the capital in a stuttered sound at the beginning of a sentence, unless that sound is from a proper noun:

• ‘G-G-Grandma isn’t here.’

There are a few ways to indicate faltering speech, including using ellipses and dashes, but if you specifically want to show a stammering or stuttering sound, hyphens used in this way is a good option.

You can also use hyphens to indicate a word that is spelled out: 

• ‘It’s Anne with an E. A-N-N-E.’

Common hyphen mistakes

The most common hyphen usage mistakes I see in fiction and non-fiction manuscripts:

• – Hyphenating adverbs ending in -ly in compound modifiers
• – Failing to hyphenate compound modifiers before a noun.

If you learn nothing else, getting a handle on these will save you time and stress at your writing desk!

If you have more questions about hyphens, drop me a line! And if you’d like help wrangling punctuation, get in touch with me to chat about a copyedit for your project. I offer a free sample edit so you can see exactly how copyediting will enhance your storytelling and clarify your message.