ONE WORD OR TWO?

Copyediting jargon includes phrases like open, hyphenated, and solid (or dosed):

A two-word open compound is a high school, near-miss, common sense.
A hard hyphen connects the terms of a hyphenated compound: half-life and self-confidence.
A solid compound is one word: schoolteacher, headache, textbook, commonsense.

Some compounds are treated consistently, while their grammatical function determines the handling of many others. The compound adjective time consuming is hyphenated when it precedes a noun (time-consuming tasks) but not when it follows the noun (these tasks are time-consuming). The quantity and length of additional adjectives inside a cluster can also impact hyphenation. When a statement contains numerous compound adjectives, hyphens assist the reader in distinguishing the various units: her all-too-brief letter but her all-too-brief public service career.

The dictionary is a copyeditor’s initial resource for compound treatment. If a compound is not mentioned in the dictionary, the style manual is the next place to look for help. However, certain hyphenation decisions are subjective because no dictionary or style manual can include every possible compound. Some individuals like more commas (“Clarity!”), and others prefer less (“Avoid useless clutter!”), some say, “When in doubt, add a hyphen,” while others say, “Leave it out.”

It’s also worth mentioning that compound hyphenation evolves throughout time. When a new compound enters the language, it is usually in open or hyphenated form; when the phrase develops popularity, the word space or hyphen vanishes, and the term becomes solid. As a result, copy editor and copyeditor give way to copyeditor. Proofreading suggests that “when in doubt, close it up” and recommends barcode, email, homepage, menubar, online, pulldown, screensaver, and voicemail.

Above all, copyeditors must keep in mind that hyphenation alone will not correct a writer’s thoughtless or obsessive agglomerative clusters. A bushel of hyphens will not help to interpret indecipherable sequences of adjectives and nouns; rewriting is the only way.

Compound Adjectives: Attributive And Predicate

Adjectives that come before the noun they modify are known as attributive adjectives, whereas adjectives that come after the noun are known as predicate adjectives. Misreading is more likely when an attributive adjective is two words or longer. For example, a sign outside a restaurant may state “No Smoking Section.” Some customers will presume that the restaurant does not have a smoking area (“there is no smoking section”), while others will believe that smoking is forbidden (“there is a non-smoking section”).

Here is another example of the difference a hyphen can make:

He is taking care of four-year-old boys.
She is taking care of four-year-old boys.
Two-word attributive adjectives. Two-word attributive adjectives are usually hyphenated:
A multilingual attributive adjective should be hyphenated: Flaneur-inspired fashion for béisbol-crazed youngsters.
Adjectives are phrases. When used attributively, adjectives made up of short common phrases are hyphenated:

Compound Adverbs

Compound adverbs rarely cause problems, but be on the lookout for ambiguous combinations:

He, too, readily agreed. [Means He also agreed.]
He, too readily, agreed. [Means He agreed too readily.]
She is requesting yet more arcane information. [Means additional information that is arcane]
She is requesting yet more-arcane information. [Means information that is more arcane]

Compound Nouns

Many compound noun conventions lack rhyme or reason; for example, M-WCollegiate displays crossbones, cross-purpose, and cross-section; break-in, breakout, breakup; walk-in, walk-on, walk-out, and walk-up. And, because few authors pause to examine the preferred hyphenation of a simple term (e.g., girlfriend or girlfriend7, half hitch or half-hitch7), even competent writers tend to mix different forms within a text. Copyeditors should always look up compound nouns in the dictionary and insert the proper form on the style sheet to guarantee uniformity within a manuscript.

Prefixes And Suffixes

Most words constructed with common prefixes and suffixes (e.g., anti-, hi-, mid-, multi-, non-, over-, post-, pre-, re-, sub-, un-, under-) are frequently closed up—unless the closed form is unclear or difficult to read:

anti-intellectual, semi-independent (to avoid double i)
co-edition, co-op, co-opt
de-emphasize, de-escalate, de-ice
guru-like, hobo-like, lava-like
mid-ocean, mid-thirties, mid-thirteenth century (noun),
mid-thirteenth-century (adjective)

Cyberjargon

Dozens of computer-related substances have found their way into everyday life, and contemporary practice is highly split, with preferences shifting as technologies advance. “Email,” for example, was popular in the mid-1990s but has since all but vanished, leaving editors and writers to argue over “email” vs “email.” If the publisher’s in-house rules encompass cyberjargon, you will adhere to the norms outlined there. If you must make an independent judgment, consider the author’s preference, the strength of the author’s sentiments, the target readership, and the document’s purpose. Most of the time, your first consideration should be, “Which forms are most likely to be clear to the readers?” However, in corporate publishing, portraying an up-to-date image may be more essential than clarity; in these circumstances, the publications department may choose the sleeker all-lowercase closed compounds (homepage, voicemail, website).

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