Definition:
A short horizontal mark of punctuation ( - ) used between the parts of a compound word or name or between the syllables of a word when divided at the end of a line of text. Don't confuse the hyphen with the dash (--). See also:
Etymology:
From the Greek, a sign indicating a compound or two words which are to be read as one.Examples and Observations:
- "In success, you wouldn't be able to say I'm conservative or liberal. I'm part of the blame-America-last crowd."
(Stephen Colbert) - "The use of hyphens in compounds and complex words involves a number of different rules, and practice is changing, with fewer hyphens present in contemporary usage. For example, compound words may be written as separate words (post box), hyphenated (post-box) or written as one word (postbox).
"Particular prefixes regularly involve a hyphen (e.g. ex-minister, post-war, self-interest, quasi-public).
"Hyphens are normally used in compounds in which the pre-head item is a single capital letter (e.g. U-turn, X-ray), and hyphens are sometimes needed to disambiguate certain words (e.g. re-form = form again, reform = change radically).
"In numerically modified adjectives, all modifying elements are hyphenated. Note that these forms are only used attributively (e.g. an eighteen-year-old girl, a twenty-ton truck, a twenty-four hour flight)."
(Ronald Carter and Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English, Cambridge University Press, 2006) - "New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions. It marries old opinion to new fact so as ever to show a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity."
(William James) - "The hyphen is the most un-American thing in the world."
(President Woodrow Wilson) - "One must regard the hyphen as a blemish to be avoided whenever possible."
(attributed to Winston Churchill)
Pronunciation: HI-fen
