The little line that could

The humble hyphen…

Some love it. Others can’t bear it. Few fully understand it.

Why does this tiny little mark – no more than half a dash – arouse such heated emotions?

What purpose does it serve? Can’t we just do without it? And why does it have that surprising tendency to come and go while the words to either side of it remain stubbornly unmoved?

A tale for the ages

I’m going to tell you a story.

It’s a story about bravery, and self-belief, and triumph against the odds. It’s a story about the miracles that can be achieved by the least promising, most overlooked member of the team.

It’s a story about… well, okay, it’s a story about punctuation.

But maybe, just maybe, it’ll help you understand this unsung hero a little better.

The daily chores

The hyphen does not, on the whole, like to draw attention to itself. It isn’t as excitable as an exclamation mark or as trouble-making as an apostrophe, always barging in where it isn’t wanted or doing a runner when it’s needed most.

Our conscientious little worker punches in on time every morning, ready to get busy with the grunt work of the punctuation yard.

Have a close-knit group of letters found themselves straddling two separate lines? The hyphen will link them up and keep things running smoothly.

Does a number want to crash the word party? Seventy-two times out of a hundred, our friend will take care of that too.

How about a difficult prefix or suffix that needs to be re-engaged with its role? No problem. The hyphen is happy to oblige.

A long-term commitment

Then there are those words that can’t bear to spend time apart but want to do things the proper way. They’re looking for a conspicuous public symbol of their betrothal.

Call them old-fashioned if you like. The hyphen doesn’t judge.

Some call him old-fashioned too. The eager young compound nouns of today don’t care about engagement – or not unless it’s time to strut their stuff on social media. They’re keen to go the whole hog from the off, stuck together like glue.

The hyphen tries not to let it get him down. But sometimes he wonders whether his days are numbered. How long will it be before he punches out for the last time?

Branching out

One day, though, something unexpected happens…

A bunch of words find themselves stranded in the wild. Broken-down and confused, desperate for someone to take charge, they cry out for assistance. Can’t anyone save them?

The mighty comma says no, sorry, he can’t assist. He tried a bit of splicing once and never heard the end of it.

And the full stop? Certainly not. He knows his place and he’s sticking to it. Period.

As for the semi-colon… well, we should probably just leave him out of this. He’s a little… special.

Maybe, though, someone else can help?

Live and in person

While our volunteer summons up his courage, let’s take a closer look at the problem. Over to our reporter at the scene…

Ahem. Is this thing on? All right, then.

A phrase in need of rescue

Consider these words:

I have two three year old boys.

Microsoft Word highlights a problem with that sentence, and hopefully you can see why. While we can guess at what the author wanted to say, we can’t be 100% certain that we’ve understood them correctly.

How many boys do they have? Two or three? Did the author run into a patch of brain fog while typing (hey, it happens), correct themselves, but then forget to delete one of the numbers?

And just how old are these boys? A year old? Or three years old?

The doubters raise their voices

Yes, I know. We’re smart people. We can work this out. We can do our mental juggling act and conclude that there are probably two boys, and they’re probably three years old.

But that’s precisely the issue: we have to think about it. We don’t just read the sentence and immediately understand it. We hesitate. And even when we’ve worked out what we think the author meant, there’ll always be that little whisper of doubt at the back of our mind.

You know the problem with doubt, don’t you? The more you feed it, the more it grows.

If we keep coming across ambiguous or unclear phrases like this in the text, we will, slowly but surely, begin to question everything the author has to say.

Let’s hitch up the carriages…

So, how do we fix this?

It’s simple. Just call in a couple of hyphens.

Here comes our plucky little worker now, ready to save the day:

I have two three-year-old boys.

Now there’s absolutely no question as to the meaning of the sentence. There are two boys, and each is three years old.

Doesn’t that make things easier?

… and stick to our principles…

If gender isn’t important to us, or at least not to our sentence, we might decide to drop the word “boys” altogether. Here, too, we need our pair of hyphens:

I have two three-year-olds.

In this sentence, “three-year-olds” is a compound noun, and we already know what we need to do with those: either we hyphenate them or we stick them neatly together. I can’t imagine “threeyearolds” being an option, so hyphens it is!

Try removing one or both hyphens and see how the sentence immediately becomes nonsensical.

If you have any lingering doubts, just say the phrase “three-year-olds” aloud. Notice how you naturally run the words together? Those hyphens perform the same function.

… but ready the brakes

Hold on, though. Let’s not get carried away. Whatever you do, please don’t take this piece of advice as a licence to start hyphenating ages wherever they appear.

It would be a mistake, for example, to write “My boys are three-years-old.” The hyphens in that sentence serve no useful purpose. All they do, in fact, is supply ammunition to those who’d rather see them eliminated entirely.

No. If the phrase in question appears after the noun, then there’s no chance of confusion and you can happily leave the hyphens in the sidings:

My boys are three years old.

Modifying our approach

In the phrase “three-year-old boys”, the term “three-year-old” functions as what grammarians would call a modifier. That’s to say, the phrase modifies or changes the meaning of what follows.

Modifiers come in various kinds and, when misused, can produce some of the most desperately ugly or unclear language you’ll ever encounter.

It’s tempting to go down a branch line here, and spend some time exploring those modifiers a little more. But we have a timetable to keep to, so let’s leave the detour for another day.

Suffice to say that modifiers matter. They should always be treated with care.

Coasting along nicely

Well, look at that. Our little hyphen is capable of far more than the crowd expected. All he needed was a chance to shine.

Now that he’s got the train back in motion, why don’t we have a quick check of the mechanics, just to make sure we’re up to speed on how this thing works?

Keep looking forward

Let’s pick a two-word phrase. Something like… oh, I don’t know… “first class”.

Here, the word “first” is itself a modifier: it describes the type of class we’re talking about. A passenger sitting in first class is in no need of a hyphen; he’s perfectly comfortable as he is.

Put another noun after those two words, though, and “first class” becomes a modifier all of its own. A compound adjective, to be precise – a single unit with one grammatical function: to describe the word that follows.

Now our passenger will doubtless want to make it clear that his ticket is for the “first-class compartment” and not the “first class compartment”.

There are an awful lot of schoolkids on this train.

Putting your life on the line

I can hear what you’re thinking: all of this seems a bit… well… minor league. Where are the stakes? What happened to the drama?

And yes, it’s true that, for the most part, what we’re doing here is adding polish. We’re clearing up any chance of confusion while making the text more attractive and easier to read.

Sometimes, though, that hyphen might just mean the difference between life and death.

You’ve heard the one about the “man eating turkey”, right?

Switching tracks

All that being said, a modifier doesn’t always need the hyphen’s help.

Adverbs, in particular, can often get away without using one – especially if they end in -ly.

It’s also true that sometimes, if we’re writing for a particular audience and we’re sure there’s no risk of derailing their understanding, we might be able to get away without using a hyphen even where the “rule” suggests that we should.

It takes some experience to recognise these situations, though. Blow through those flashing red lights at your peril.

This is harder than I thought!

I sympathise. It can get confusing. But that’s precisely why copy editors exist: to help you sort out this kind of thing. You could do worse than ask one for help.

It’s worth mentioning, too, that it takes a while even for editors to fully get to grips with the technique. A freshly minted wordsmith might not even spot the need for a hyphen, while one who’s recently been introduced to the symbol’s charms might indulge in them a little too eagerly. I went through that stage myself about two-and-a-half decades ago. I’m now somewhat ol–… er, wiser.

An experienced copy editor will take a mindful approach to your prose. They won’t jam hyphens in willy-nilly, but nor will they be afraid to use them where they’ll clearly help the text to flow. Sometimes, they’ll be able to suggest a different formulation entirely – one that avoids the potential irritation of a hyphen by shuffling the words into a more attractive order. The text is happy and the hyphen gets a day off. I’d call that a win-win.

Running out of steam?

Oh dear. Our poor little metaphor is beginning to struggle. He started off well, but can he make it all the way to his destination?

He can. He can, he can, he can.

Reaching the end

It’s been a long, hard slog, but we’re almost there now. Just one last bit of effort…

Good writing, like pulling train carriages up the side of a mountain, doesn’t happen in an instant. Wouldn’t it be nice if it did?

The reality is that it’s a journey – and often a slow one at that, full of stops and starts.

The keys to success are persistence and polish. Keep on struggling, keep on improving, and don’t be too proud to accept a helping hand from time to time – even if it comes from a hyphen.

Sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

Collecting our reward

He made it! Against all odds, the little line that could… actually did.

He’s rescued the carriages. He’s crested the Mountain of Doubt. The onlookers cheer.

And our little hero? He barely hears them. Exhausted but happy, he relaxes in the satisfaction of a job well done.

And besides… he’s already received something better than praise.

Just look at that view. Isn’t it beautiful?

I’d call that a fitting reward in itself.