Q. Lately I see more and more hyphenated -ly phrases, especially in digital communication—e.g., “a hastily-made decision.” Is this just my cognitive bias inventing a trend that isn’t there, or have your editors noticed more -ly hyphens as well? I know they’re more unnecessary than incorrect, so am I being fussy to mark them for deletion if they’re used consistently and doing no real harm to reader comprehension? Thanks as always for your insight.
A. We haven’t noticed such a trend. Actually many years ago such hyphens were a lot more common than they are today. For example, in the first edition of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), there were about fifty such hyphens. But we’ve evolved since then to recognize the -ly species as mainly adverbial in nature. You can therefore delete any mutant, atavistic hyphens that cross your path.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In a recent Q&A the hyphens look like en dashes to me. Are they, and if they are, why?
A. You must be referring to the main entries for “fund-raiser” and “fund-raising” in the screenshot from the first printing of the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Those do look like en dashes, but they are presented that way for maximum legibility: for one thing, regular hyphens might be confused with the centered dots that indicate places where a hyphen may be added to divide a word at the end of a line. In other words, “fund–rais·er” is easier to interpret at a glance as a hyphenated term than “fund-rais·er” would be. For what it’s worth, at Merriam-Webster.com, the hyphens in main entries are really hyphens. For the entry words online, however, M-W uses the font Playfair Display, which has the advantage of featuring generously long hyphens. This matters a bit less in the online version of the dictionary, where suggested word division is shown on a separate line, below the main entry (and in a different font that happens to feature shorter hyphens). But as this screenshot from the definition for “self-conscious” shows, the extra-long hyphen is strikingly legible:
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have an ongoing disagreement with another scholar that I’m hoping you can help resolve. He suggests that the phrase “early modern” requires hyphenation when used as an adjective (ex.: “early-modern literature”). I would instead say “early modern literature”; is there a right answer here?
A. Your colleague has reason on his side—the hyphen would help readers understand that you’re talking about literature from the early modern period (or, sorry: the early-modern period) rather than modern literature that was early in some other sense of the word. But the latter reading is extremely unlikely, and your colleague’s preference is contrary to established usage. The Oxford English Dictionary includes a subentry under “early” (adj. and n.) for “early modern” as a compound adjective, and none of the cited examples, which date back to 1817, include a hyphen. Verdict: you’re right and he’s wrong.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Is it “ice-cream sandwich” or “ice cream sandwich”?
A. Let’s first consult Merriam-Webster. There you will find two forms of the compound. The first is an entry for hyphenated “ice-cream,” defined as an adjective meaning “of a color similar to that of vanilla ice cream.” The second is for unhyphenated “ice cream,” the far more popular noun form that you can eat. Now let’s consult the hyphenation table (CMOS 7.89). According to section 2, “noun + noun, single function (first noun modifies second noun),” you would add a hyphen before another noun (“ice-cream sandwich”). But we don’t need the hyphenation table in this case; as we have seen, “ice cream” is an established open compound (or a permanent compound, according to CMOS 7.82). And according to a Google Ngram query, the unhyphenated version is significantly more common in published books. For that matter, the hyphenated variety would be difficult to find on store shelves. (Our preference is for the classic sandwich featuring vanilla ice cream between two chocolate-flavored wafers—whatever the brand.) So “ice cream sandwich” is arguably the better choice.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Can an em dash be used to connect two complete sentences? For example: “You don’t need to go to the DMV in person to renew your driver’s license—you can renew it online.” Thank you in advance for your answer!
A. The em dash is the chameleon of punctuation marks. It probably wouldn’t get away with trying to impersonate a question mark or an exclamation point, but it can stand in for just about any of the other standard sentence marks. Your example is (almost) a perfect illustration. It could be written with a semicolon, a colon, or a period (or a pair of parentheses) in place of the dash—but the dash adds a bit of emphasis that’s in keeping with the relatively informal tone. (A dash can also take the place of a comma, but a comma in your example would be considered a comma splice.)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Our typesetter applied Chicago’s never-add-a-hyphen-to-a-URL-breaking-over-two-lines rule to hashtags breaking over two lines (specifically “#MeToo”), and the proofreader marked to force them all to one line, which may result in a lot of loose/tight lines since this occurs quite frequently. Would you suggest stetting the original, going with the proofreader’s fix, or hyphenating?
A. We would suggest the following order of preference: (1) prevent the hashtag from breaking (your proofreader’s preference); or (2), where a typefitting problem would be ameliorated only by a break in the hashtag, hyphenate: #Me-/Too. Many URLs contain hyphens; hashtags never do. So whereas it is important never to add a hyphen to a URL, lest it be misinterpreted as part of the string, it’s OK to allow an optional hyphen (also called a soft or discretionary hyphen) in a hashtag at the end of a line—exactly as you might add a hyphen to an ordinary word that would not otherwise include one. Furthermore, whereas a URL that breaks over two lines is usually recognizable as such without the aid of a hyphen (and in printed works, CMOS recommends breaking a URL immediately before an existing hyphen), a hashtag broken at the end of a line without a hyphen is subject to being misread as a hashtag (#Me) followed by a new word (Too).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Do you hyphenate “student teacher”?
A. We follow Merriam-Webster and leave it open: “student teacher.” The term, in which “student” modifies “teacher,” is analogous to “student nurse,” which appears in section 2 of our hyphenation table (CMOS 7.89) under “noun + noun, single function (first noun modifies second noun).” Compare “writer-director,” in which the nouns represent two separate (and grammatically equal) functions.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Does the Manual defend “on a case-by-case basis” over “case by case”?
A. Yes—we would hyphenate. You can deduce this preference from CMOS 7.87: “Multiple hyphens are usually appropriate for such phrases as an over-the-counter drug or a winner-take-all contest.” Hyphens in such phrases aid readability by helping readers to differentiate a modifier of otherwise indeterminate length from the word or words that it modifies. Postscript: As to whether we would defend “on a case-by-case basis” as a phrase, it’s an established idiom and might be preferred in some instances to the more concise “case by case” on that basis alone (so to speak). (Compare “pets will be permitted on a case-by-case basis” to “pets will be permitted case by case.”) But if you’re considering a shipment of beer, you may need to examine it case by case (literally). It’s best to take a case-by-case approach.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I know that the CMOS preference is not to hyphenate “noun + gerund” compounds, but in the case of “decision-making,” which appears with the hyphen in many dictionaries, would CMOS call for a hyphen? Thank you in advance!
A. Here’s what our hyphenation table says, under “noun + gerund”: “Noun form usually open; adjective form hyphenated before a noun. Some permanent compounds hyphenated or closed (see 7.82).”
If you follow the link to paragraph 7.82, you will see that a permanent compound is a compound that’s listed in the dictionary in any form—open, hyphenated, or closed. In Merriam-Webster, our dictionary of choice, the hyphenated compound noun “decision-making” appears as such, so it’s always hyphenated. (Most adjective forms, on the other hand, can be left open after a noun, even if they are listed in the dictionary with a hyphen.)
In CMOS 16 (published in 2010), “decision-making” was not yet listed in Merriam-Webster. But M-W added it in time for CMOS 17 (published in 2017). So whereas CMOS 16 shows the noun form “decision making” in its table, CMOS 17 has “decision-making.”
We hope this helps with your decision-making efforts! (As a preceding modifier, “decision-making” would be hyphenated even according to CMOS 16.)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When referring to year ranges, I have an author who insists on using “during 1940–45.” I’ve seen “from 1940 to 1945” and “between 1940 and 1945” and simply “1940–45,” but other prepositions sound awkward in this context. To me, something happens during an argument, the winter, the ’80s, an era. That is, something that has a beginning and an end but where those time points aren’t explicitly stated. I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter!
A. It’s like you say. The preposition “during” (like “in”) makes sense with a single event or period; it doesn’t quite work with a period expressed in terms of a beginning and an end. You can write “during the war,” but “during 1940 to 1945” is awkward. So change “during 1940–45” to “from 1940 to 1945” or “between 1940 and 1945”; the former emphasizes the whole range, the latter can be less specific. Or, as a last resort, add “the years”: “during the years 1940–45.” See CMOS 6.78 for more examples.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]