Q. Are there compounds that are always hyphenated, such as “up-to-date” or “step-by-step,” or are these only hyphenated when modifying another word, as in “up-to-date rules” or “step-by-step procedures”? My company is writing “We’ll walk you through it step by step,” and I thought that it should be “We’ll walk you through it step-by-step.”
A. We prefer to keep such commonplace or even clichéd phrases, some of which are listed in hyphenated form in standard dictionaries, open when they appear after the noun they modify or when they are used adverbially:
step-by-step recovery (where “step-by-step” is a phrasal adjective preceding the noun it modifies)
but
feelings that were out of date (because “out of date” follows the noun it modifies)
and
walking across the continent step by step (because “step by step” is functioning as a phrasal adverb)
See CMOS 5.92, 5.93, and 5.161 for more information. For examples, see the hyphenation table at 7.89.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I seem to remember from somewhere that breaking a word from the recto page to the verso page should be avoided. I can’t find such a rule in The Chicago Manual of Style. Is this a figment of my imagination? Also, what about breaking a word from the verso page to the recto page?
A. Chicago allows breaks from verso to recto but advises avoiding breaks from recto to verso if at all possible. (Sometimes such a break may be needed to prevent an especially loose line.) See paragraph 2.116 in CMOS 17 for these and related considerations.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In sports, does the score require a hyphen or should you use an en dash? What about decisions on the Supreme Court?
A. Let’s say the Washington Wizards beat the Los Angeles Lakers 100–99. Normally, the en dash is used to express a range—from x up to and including y. The expression 100–99 does not express a range—it expresses two separate values. Nonetheless, we’ve decided that because we say “one hundred to ninety-nine,” an en dash is better than a hyphen. In the same vein, when the Supreme Court decides something five votes to four, use an en dash rather than a hyphen: 5–4 (not 5-4). For a fuller statement of the rule and more examples, see CMOS 6.78.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Is it your recommendation to still use a hyphen in a phrases like “mid-1985”? If so, then would it be best to write “mid- to late 1985”?
A. We are still apt to consider mid to be a prefix meaning “middle” in expressions like “mid-1985,” hence the hyphen. The status of prefix means that mid- forms one word in combination, unless it is joined to a capital letter or a numeral, in which case a hyphen is employed: midsentence, midcentury; but mid-July, mid-1985. Your solution of “mid- to late 1985” (short for “mid-1985 to late 1985”) is impeccably logical, though some editors prefer the rather odd “mid-to-late 1985,” because the stray hyphen might be misleading to some readers.
Perhaps life would be simpler if we could just say, following Merriam-Webster, that mid is not a prefix; rather, it is an adjective (sometimes it is an adverb or preposition) of the type seen in expressions like “mid Atlantic,” but it tends toward hyphenated combination form. That would allow us to write “mid-1985,” giving in to the tendency toward combination, and “mid to late 1985,” arguing that without proximity, there’s no attraction.
I would recommend having it both ways, especially if you don’t like either of the “mid to late” solutions involving hyphens. Continue to grant prefix status to mid, allowing words like “midpurgatory,” but when mid strays from its partner, drop the hyphen, allowing “mid to late 1985,” an expression that I think is entirely clear (it’s essentially the equivalent of “middle to late 1985”).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Do you recommend using a hyphen when spelling out the time of day?
A. Our rule is to reserve hyphens for the naturally hyphenated cardinal number:
eight forty-five; five fifteen; three thirty
But add a hyphen when the time of day precedes and modifies a noun, unless part of the expression is already hyphenated:
three-thirty train; eight forty-five appointment
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have a hyphenation question that I wasn’t able to resolve after reading CMOS or the Q&A page on your website. I am in a debate with a fellow attorney about the proper hyphenation for the phrase “explicitly-defined” when used in the context of “an explicitly-defined rule governing adoptions.” My colleague insists there should be no hyphen between “explicitly” and “defined.” I think that there should be a hyphen between the two words.
A. The CMOS rule, which you can find at paragraph 7.86 of the seventeenth edition, is to leave such compounds open. An ly strongly signals adverb—and adverbs cannot modify nouns by themselves. No hyphen is needed, then, to warn that the next word is not a noun but rather an adjective. There’s no such thing as “an explicitly rule,” so there is no chance of misreading “explicitly defined rule.”
That said, it has long been the practice elsewhere—among British writers, for example—to hyphenate ly + participle/adjective compounds. And American writers a century ago—Edith Wharton comes to mind (“the pallour of her delicately-hollowed face,” describing an exhausted Lily Bart toward the end of The House of Mirth [1905])—seemed always to use such hyphens (or at least their publishers did). The reasoning behind this approach may be that the ly so strongly telegraphs another modifier that the two might as well tie the knot.
So it is a matter not of who is right or wrong but of whose rule you are going to follow. We think that added to our logic is the small victory of avoiding a hyphen.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Now here’s one phrase I’ve always found difficult to hyphenate. “Foreign policy making elite,” referring to an elite making foreign policy. Would Chicago write “foreign policymaking elite”?
Q. Dear Chicago, I’m in a debate with my 73-year-old publisher. I lost my AP Style book in a recent move and I can’t remember the rule for putting hyphens in a person’s age. My publisher says it is only used when the age is a modifier. I say it needs to be used when it is a noun as well, such as: “The healthy 18-year-old jumped in his car . . .” He claims it is only used in a sentence similar to this: “An 8-year-old boy.” Please let me know which is correct so I can end this debate and put this magazine to bed! Thank you, Missouri.
A. Dear Missouri: You are correct. In a phrase such as “a five-year-old,” the age modifies an implicit noun. See CMOS 7.89, section 1, under “age terms,” for more examples.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Can you offer any guidance as to how best to render people’s height? I’ve seen “five feet, two inches” (tall), “five-feet-two-inches” “five-feet-two,” “five-foot-two” (yikes!), “five-two,” all of the preceding with the hyphens placed otherwise or omitted, and, of course, good old 5' 2''. I’ve searched “Chicago” but haven’t found the answer. Help!
A. Usually, a hyphen is unnecessary: write “five feet, two inches tall,” “five feet, two inches,” “five foot two,” and so forth. But a hyphen is helpful in expressions such as “five-two.” If you write 5′2″, there’s no space after the sign for feet (a prime symbol). See CMOS 7.89, section 1, under “number + noun.” See also paragraph 10.66.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Some authors in the company for which I copyedit have been using an en dash, rather than a hyphen, for the negative sign in negative numbers, i.e., –3 versus -3. Some of our required fonts exaggerate the difference, and occasionally this results in negative signs of varying size in our technical documentation. I would prefer that all authors use the hyphen to create a more consistent look. As CMOS is this company’s style reference guide, I have searched through it for a recommendation regarding this topic but have not found one. Does CMOS have a preference?
A. CMOS prefers the actual minus sign, which is not the same as an en dash, in professionally typeset material. The minus sign is defined by Unicode as U+2212; the en dash is U+2013. See paragraph 11.2 and table 12.1 in CMOS for more information.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]