Do hyphens really matter? Can the omission of a hyphen in compound words that should be hyphenated change the intended meaning? What are the functions of a hyphen? What are the rules for hyphenating words? The focus of this week’s column is on the use of the hyphen.
Words that are joined by means of a hyphen are called hyphenated words. But do hyphens really matter? Look at the sentences below:
• Please go to the changing-room.
• Please go to the changing room.
In the sentences above, the hyphenated compound noun changing-room conveys the meaning clearly. If it is not hyphenated, one may ask the question whether the room is changing. Similarly, the compound noun laughing-gas is clear whereas ‘laughing gas’ (without a hyphen) is ambiguous as one may raise the question whether the gas is laughing. Words are hyphenated in order to eliminate ambiguity. Look at these two sentences:
• Fifty-odd teachers attended the conference.
• Fifty odd teachers attended the conference.
The word ‘odd’ has different meanings. It is also a suffix, which is used after a number to show that the exact number is not known. In the first sentence above, it is used in that sense and therefore, the two words ‘fifty’ and the suffix ‘-odd’ have been linked by a hyphen. In the second sentence, the word ‘odd’ means ‘strange’ and the two words ‘fifty’ and ‘odd’ modify the teachers. The second sentence is the answer to the questions, ‘How many teachers and what type of teachers’. By hyphenating the phrase ‘fifty-odd’ we are able to differentiate the meaning between the two sentences.
Let’s analyze the use of hyphenated words. Read the passage below:
Fares crashed on Tuesday as airlines rolled out never-before offers to lure passengers and fill empty seats. Jet Airways kicked off the price war with a six-day sale of 20 lakh seats over 450 flights across 57 domestic destinations. Air India followed suit immediately and slashed fares in the Chennai-Mumbai, Chennai-Delhi and Chennai-Hyderabad sectors for travel in April, May and beyond.
In the news report above, there are five hyphenated words: never-before, six-day, Chennai-Mumbai, Chennai-Delhi and Chennai-Hyderabad. These hyphenated-words function as adjectives. They are called compound adjectives because each of them comprises more than one word and they describe the nouns ‘offers’, ‘sale’ and ‘sectors’. Though compound adjectives comprise more than one word, it conveys just one idea. The rules for hyphenating words are:
• Compound adjectives if they express one idea. Eg. Full-time job and one-day seminar.
• Compound nouns, if they constitute a single idea: Eg. Mother-in-law
• Ordinal numbers and fractions: Twenty-eight days, two-thirds of the students, etc
• Prefixes: For eg, self-appointed president and ex-MLA
According to Fowler, the hyphen is not an ornament but an aid to being understood, and should be employed only when it is needed for that purpose.
— rayanal@yahoo.co.uk