5 Types of Unnecessary Hyphenation

5 Types of Unnecessary Hyphenation 5 Types of Unnecessary Hyphenation 5 Types of Unnecessary Hyphenation By Mark Nichol The sentences below, each followed by a discussion and a revision, illustrate various ways in which a hyphen is used extraneously. 1. He adds that cities should be forced to follow a federally-defined law pertaining to what kinds of benefits restaurants should be required to provide to their employees. Because adverbial phrases such as â€Å"federally defined† (where the adverb federally modifies the adjective defined, which in turn modifies a noun) so closely resemble adjectival phrases such as â€Å"little known† (where the adjectives little and known combine to modify a noun), and phrases in the latter category are usually hyphenated before a noun, adverbial phrases are also often (incorrectly) hyphenated. Here, as in the case of all adverbial phrases ending in -ly, â€Å"federally defined† is not hyphenated: â€Å"He adds that cities should be forced to follow a federally defined law pertaining to what kinds of benefits restaurants should be required to provide to their employees.† (However, flat adverbs- those lacking the -ly ending- are hyphenated to an adjective when the adverbial phrase precedes a noun, such as â€Å"high ranking.† 2. Most of them are small- and medium-sized cities many people may never have heard of. Small is followed by a hyphen here as if it constitutes a case of suspended hyphenation, where a repetition (in this case) of sized is implied, but the two elements modifying cities are not â€Å"small sized† and â€Å"medium sized,† but rather small and â€Å"medium sized,† so the hyphen after small is erroneous: â€Å"Most of them are small and medium-sized cities many people may never have heard of.† 3. The film was among the highest-grossing that year. A phrasal adjective is generally not hyphenated when it follows the noun it modifies: â€Å"The film was among the highest grossing that year.† (Alternatively, retain the hyphen but insert a synonym for the noun after the phrasal adjective, as in â€Å"The film was among the highest-grossing releases that year.†) 4. The developers proposed to phase-in that part of the project over the course of several years. â€Å"Phase in† consists of a verb and a preposition, which have no need of a hyphen to signal their interrelationship: â€Å"The developers proposed to phase in that part of the project over the course of several years.† (This error likely exists as a result of a confusion of the phrase with its use as an adjectival phrase, where a hyphen is valid, and as the noun phase-in, similar to built-in.) 5. Jones is a past-president of the organization. In this sentence, past is an adjective modifying president, and as such, it should not be attached to the word it modifies: â€Å"Jones is a past president of the organization.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Congratulations on or for?"Gratitude" or "Gratefulness"?How to Treat Names of Groups and Organizations