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What tends to happen with compound adjectives is that
they lose the hyphen
over time if used regularly. For example, in 1950
"today" was spelt "to-day" in
newspapers, and, I think, in all writing. "To-day"
was seen as the correct version,
at least.
Of the examples given below, "in-flight" can be spelt
"inflight".
Compound adjectives consisting of an adjective plus
part of a verb - e.g. ill-advised -
From: Neil Maloney <maloneyn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: atw: Re: Hyphen usage
To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Received: Monday, 15 August, 2011, 6:50 PM
"To-Do" and
"In-Progress" are compound adjectives, and compound
adjectives 'require' a hyphen. (Source:
Australian Style Manual.)
However, if hyphens will look funny to your users, it
would be better not to use them. (That's if you're
able to get any information about your end users'
preferences, there's often usually very little budget
for that.)
A quick search on the web (grammar-monster.com) finds,
under "Using Hyphens in Compound Adjectives": In the
UK, your readers will expect you to use hyphens in
compound adjectives. Americans are more lenient. The
US ruling is: Use a hyphen if it eliminates ambiguity
or helps your reader, else don't bother. If you're
unsure, use hyphens. You won't be marked down for
using hyphens.
Personally, I hyphenate complex and compound words
whenever I can – but some clients have preferences the
other way. For example, pre-flight, in-flight,
take-off, multi-crew, multi-engine, pilot-in-command.
But, as Terry has quite rightly said, I'm old-school.
Neil.
On 15/08/2011 6:07 PM, bob mosh wrote:
I have been asked
to review the user interface text of a project
management application. I have almost completed
the review, except the pending issue of hyphen
usage. I am not sure if a hyphen should be used in
the following UI labels:
· “To-Do
List” or “To Do List”
· “In-Progress
Tasks” or “In Progress Tasks” (a tab that user needs
to click to view ongoing tasks, as in New Tasks,
In-Progress Tasks, Completed Tasks, Pending Tasks)
I did some research and
found that these phrases are used both with and
without the hyphen, which made it all the more
confusing.
It would be great if
someone could help me to sift through and find the
correct usage.
Regards,
Bob
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