A Hyphenation Quiz

A Hyphenation Quiz A Hyphenation Quiz A Hyphenation Quiz By Mark Nichol Yes, I hype correct hyphenation, but proper treatment of the little line enables clear communication, so on this site, I repeatedly attach importance to the attachment tool. In the following sentences, excessive or insufficient use of hyphens clouds rather than clarifies. Correct the connective calamities below, then check my answer key at the bottom of the page: 1. â€Å"The program offers student-directed and student-initiated research- and discovery-based learning opportunities.† 2. â€Å"The plan includes accidental death and dismemberment coverage.† 3. â€Å"The businessman-turned-candidate spoke about his religious beliefs.† 4. â€Å"Maybe the country just doesn’t want a my way or the highway Texan in the White House again.† 5. â€Å"Travel to near-space in a 400-foot diameter balloon.† 6. â€Å"He all-but-lectured the lawmakers assembled.† 7. â€Å"The rainbow flag flew at half-staff to honor Elizabeth Taylor, the Hollywood-star-and icon to gays who died in March.† Answers 1. This hyphen-saturated sentence, though technically correct (though to be fair but awkward, the second mention of the word student should be elided), reads better when it is relaxed: â€Å"The program, based on research and discovery, allows students to direct and initiate their own learning opportunities.† â€Å"Student-directed and -initiated† and â€Å"research- and discovery-based† are proper examples of suspensive hyphenation, but the double-suspension string â€Å"student-directed and (student)-initiated research- and discovery-based† is excessive. 2. As written, this sentence implies that the coverage is accidental. But the coverage presumably protects against two possibilities: accidental death, and dismemberment, so the phrase â€Å"accidental death† should be hyphenated to signal that the constituent words combine to modify coverage, and because the insurance also applies to nondeliberate dismemberment, that word should be preceded by a suspended hyphenation. However, because no insurance company hyphenates this phrase in its literature, I’m inclined to request, as in the previous example, at least a relaxed rewrite that obviates hyphenation: â€Å"The plan includes coverage in case of accidental death and dismemberment.† 3. When the verb turned stands between a word describing a former state and one referring to a current state, unlike as is the case with the similarly employed conjunction cum (â€Å"with†), no hyphenation is necessary: â€Å"The businessman turned candidate spoke about his religious beliefs.† 4. The word string defining what kind of Texan the subject is must be corralled into one group, either with quotation marks that imply that the sentiment is literally or figuratively stated, or with multiple hyphens: â€Å"Maybe the country just doesn’t want a my-way-or-the-highway Texan in the White House again.† 5. This sentence manages two hyphenation errors within its ten-word length. Near is often erroneously attached to the following noun; hyphenation is correct only when near and the following word form a phrasal adjective modifying a third term, as in â€Å"near-space tourist travel† (where the open compound â€Å"tourist travel† is an noun phrase). Also, the half-hearted hyphenation that follows implies the existence of an odd item referred to as a diameter balloon; this one apparently has 400 five-toed appendages. The phrase should be revised to correctly reflect that the balloon is 400 feet in diameter: â€Å"Travel to near space in a 400-foot-diameter balloon.† 6. The modifying phrase â€Å"all but† needs not be attached to the verb, nor do the two words in that phrase require connection: â€Å"He all but lectured the lawmakers assembled.† 7. Half-staff, like its synonym half-mast (often erroneously used in nonmaritime contexts), is correctly hyphenated. The hyphenation error occurs later in the sentence, when the writer, confused about how to construct the gloss of Elizabeth Taylor, loses steam near the end. The phrase â€Å"Hollywood star and icon to gays,† however, requires no connective tissue: â€Å"The rainbow flag flew at half-staff to honor Elizabeth Taylor, the Hollywood star and icon to gays who died in March.† 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:Direct and Indirect ObjectsAcronym vs. InitialismArtist vs. Artisan