Q. Books that can be read aloud are known as “read-alouds.” Should this term be hyphenated or not?
A. Whenever you can’t find the answer to a specific hyphenation question, an analogy can be your friend. In this case, we would tend to hyphenate “read-alouds” on the principle that it is grammatically similar in construction to the hyphenated noun form “sing-along” (the plural of which would be “sing-alongs”). Not only does “sing-along” describe a similar activity—it also has an entry in Merriam-Webster.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am curious why CMOS hyphenates “president-elect” but leaves “vice president elect” open. Would “vice president–elect” (with an en dash) not be more consistent? And why is “president-elect” hyphenated even when the term doesn’t precede a noun?
A. Good questions. The word “elect” is an adjective that’s being used postpositively, or after the noun. A postpositive adjective sometimes joins to the noun it modifies with a hyphen (e.g., “knight-errant”), but in most cases it does not (“professor emeritus,” “surgeon general,” “president pro tempore”).
Merriam-Webster includes an entry for “president-elect” as a noun, which is why we hyphenate that term (the hyphen may help prevent a misreading of “elect” as a verb), but it doesn’t include a corresponding entry for “vice president” with elect. Our reluctance to require an en dash with a lowercase open compound (see CMOS 6.80) factored into our decision to continue to leave that term open as a noun.
We also looked at government documents. In the Twentieth Amendment to the US Constitution, one of the few such documents that uses the terms, you’ll find “President elect” and “Vice President elect” (no hyphens). Another official document, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, has “President-elect” and “Vice-President-elect” (one hyphen and two, respectively), but “Vice President” (without a hyphen) when “elect” isn’t tacked on. Neither document uses these as titles before a name.
But in the real world, these terms are used as titles before a name, and had we shown examples of this usage in our hyphenation table at CMOS 7.89 (or under “Titles and Offices” in chapter 8), we would have advised either two hyphens (“vice-president-elect So-and-So”) or an en dash (“vice president–elect So-and-So”). But, had we capitalized the term as a formal title, the en dash would have prevailed (though “elect,” which isn’t part of the title, would remain lowercase): “Vice President–elect Kamala Harris.” (For our preference for lowercase in a phrase like “former vice president Joe Biden” versus uppercase in a phrase like “Vice President Pence,” see CMOS 8.21.)
Uppercase or lower, the arc of editorial history appears to be bending toward greater use of the en dash, as en dash–literate questions like yours continue to demonstrate. Will they play a bigger role in future editions of CMOS? Perhaps we should take a vote.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I know an em dash marks an interruption in dialogue:
“I thought I might—”
“Might what?” she demanded.
But what happens if the same person speaks after the interruption? For example, “Can you bring me a— socket wrench, is that what you call it?” Is that space after the em dash correct?
A. Your space after the dash does makes a little bit of sense—but it doesn’t quite work. Because even if there is some logic to it, will people read that space as you intended it? Very possibly not, and definitely not if the dash happens to fall at the end of a line—as dashes are prone to do. Any editorial decision that is likely to be missed by readers or obscured by context—or that could be lost if quoted (for example, by someone following a style that puts a space before and after a dash, which would render your example meaningless)—is one that should be reconsidered.
So, either delete the space:
“Can you bring me a—socket wrench, is that what you call it?”
Or, if you want to somehow convey the extra pause or break that the space is trying to communicate, mark the interruption in some other way:
“Can you bring me a . . . socket wrench—is that what you call it?”
“Can you bring me a—what do you call it?—a socket wrench?”
“Can you bring me a”—he hesitated—“a socket wrench? Is that what you call it?”
In sum, be wary of any editorial innovation that relies on a mere space to get across the intended meaning. It has a good chance of being lost in translation.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Should “time travel” be hyphenated as a verb? CMOS 5.25 says it’s okay to use nouns as verbs, but there are no two-word examples. “Time travel” isn’t even in M-W!
A. According to our hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.89 (sec. 2, “phrases, verbal”), a verb phrase that doesn’t appear in the dictionary may be left open. Each of the examples in CMOS also appears in Merriam-Webster (where it is either closed, hyphenated, or open): babysit, handcraft, air-condition, fast-talk, strong-arm, sucker punch. Because “time travel” does not, it may be left open. (By the way, if you figure out how to travel through time, or time travel, and end up crossing paths with the Time Traveler from the classic novel by H. G. Wells, please say hello from us.)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. CMOS does not mention uses of the en dash for conflict or connection, as in “the liberal–conservative debate” or “the Radical–Unionist coalition.” Should it be inferred that CMOS opposes such uses?
A. CMOS would never oppose the consistent application of sound editorial logic, but we try to tailor our recommendations to serve both editors and readers. En dashes bump up against the limits of this goal. Editors tend to love them, but readers who haven’t been editors or proofreaders may not even notice them. If Chicago has resisted adding the sense of “between” or “and” to the more common use of the en dash as “to,” that’s the primary reason (see CMOS 6.80).
Because we do see the value of using an en dash in a phrase like “Ali–Frazier fight” or “Epstein–Barr virus.” Those dashes signal that you’re not referring to a fight or a virus that involves somebody with a hyphenated last name. And we wouldn’t want a “liberal–conservative debate” to be read as a debate about conservatives who are liberal, as a hyphen might imply. But if readers won’t get this from those en dashes (most of us—even those of us who can discern an en dash from a hyphen—will rely on context to figure out the intended meaning), is it worth an editor’s trouble to apply them?
True, we already take the time to convert hyphens to en dashes in number ranges, mostly because we know that “99–100” is a hair more legible than “99-100.” But pattern matching makes this easy to do. And we usually replace a hyphen with an en dash in “pre–Civil War” and the like—in the possibly vain hope that readers are more likely to see at a glance that it’s not a war that’s “pre-Civil.”
But we would need to be confident that more readers have become en dash literate before adding to our existing recommendations. If that ever happens, Chicago’s recommended uses for the character also known as Unicode 2013 may end up expanding.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hi! Your guidelines for hyphenating a compound modifier before a noun cite clarity as a primary reason for doing so. But what if the compound modifier is enclosed in parentheses, such as in the phrase “global (big picture) revision”? Obviously I would hyphenate “big picture” before a noun if that modifier wasn’t enclosed in parentheses, but in this example clarity is not an issue. What say y’all?
A. Parentheses make hyphenation unnecessary except for terms that would be hyphenated in any position. So you would be right to write “big-picture revision” but “global (big picture) revision.” The same principle applies to quotation marks: Our error-prone editor, resorting to his favorite excuse, reminded us that this would be a “big picture” revision only.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I know that you use “to” and not an en dash with “from”: “from 2012 to 2016 (not from 2012–16).” But what about with “for”? Should it be “for 25 to 30 minutes” or “for 25–30 minutes”?
A. An en dash is allowed in number ranges preceded by “for”: “for 25–30 minutes.” The same goes for “in”: “in 25–30 minutes.” Try this test: if the expression would still make sense with only half the range, then an en dash would be correct (though it is always permissible to use “to” instead). “We stood there for 25 minutes” and “we completed the survey in 25 minutes” are both unambiguous. On the other hand, “we lived there from 2012,” though it is sometimes encountered in speech, is incomplete (from 2012 to when?). The preposition “between”—which pairs with “and” rather than “to”—fails the test even more conclusively (try it).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I understood that compounds formed with prefixes are normally closed. However, I see a hyphen used on television and in print with all sorts of prefixes—for example, “co-founder” or “non-violent.” Are compounds formed with prefixes still normally closed? Or has spellcheck run amok?
A. Don’t worry, compounds formed with prefixes are still usually closed (see our hyphenation guide, section 4, under CMOS 7.89). But the truth about hyphens is that they tend to make compounds more legible rather than less. The deconstructionists understood this when they used a hyphen to show that the apparently straightforward act of re-membering involves piecing together the fragments of the past. But use hyphens sparingly, and only when they are truly needed. Chicago advises retaining a hyphen to prevent a doubled a or i (“intra-arterial,” “anti-intellectual”) and for certain words that might look odd without one (“pro-life,” “pro-choice”). A hyphen is also required next to a proper noun (“sub-Saharan”) or a numeral (“pre-1950”). In rare cases, a hyphen can distinguish between two meanings of a word (“recreate” vs. “re-create”). And though “cofounder” is frequently hyphenated (“co-founder” is the second-listed of equal variants in Merriam-Webster), “nonviolent” is more likely to appear closed—and neither requires a hyphen in Chicago style.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. It’s 2020. Can we please stop using a hyphen in “dropdown”?
A. According to the Apple Style Guide (dated December 2019), the term shouldn’t be used at all:
drop-down menu. Don’t use; use menu.
The Microsoft Writing Style Guide allows it, but only for an audience that includes developers:
It’s OK to use drop-down as an adjective in content for developers if you need to describe the type of UI item or how it works.
Apparently the user interface works by a sort of magic whose secrets are revealed only to magicians. Part of that magic may have something to do with the hyphen in “drop-down,” so it’s probably best not to meddle. On the other hand, Merriam-Webster lists “drop-down” and “dropdown” as equal variants for the noun form (the adjective form is always hyphenated), so maybe there’s hope for you. Just don’t tell Microsoft: according to the Microsoft guide, the noun form is verboten.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Can Chicago please provide clarification on hyphenation when “high school” is used as an adjective? For instance, do you prefer “middle and high school students” or “middle- and high-school students”? Why? One never sees “high-school curriculum” or “high-school classroom” in educational writing, but I don’t fully understand how the rules are applied toward permanent compounds used as adjectives in CMOS. Thank you!
A. It wouldn’t be incorrect to write “middle- and high-school students.” But both “middle school” and “high school” are listed in Merriam-Webster as unhyphenated noun phrases; when they are used attributively, they can remain unhyphenated.
In general, any compound that’s rarely hyphenated in real life can remain unhyphenated as a phrasal adjective if the meaning remains clear without the hyphen. This goes double for any compound that’s listed in a dictionary without the hyphen. So write “middle and high school students.”
On the other hand, if a compound is listed in the dictionary as a hyphenated phrasal adjective, Chicago style gives you permission to drop the hyphen in most cases when the compound follows the noun that it modifies (see CMOS 7.85). For example, a high-strung high school student would be, according to Chicago style, high strung (contra Merriam-Webster).
For specific examples and common exceptions, consult our hyphenation table at CMOS 7.89. If you’re still in doubt, hyphenate before the noun but not after.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]