How to use hyphens to boost your writing
- Amanda George
- Jun 3
- 3 min read
Updated: 42 minutes ago
Why are hyphens important?
Using hyphens correctly can enhance your writing, leaving your readers in no doubt about what you want to say. But use them incorrectly and you can confuse your audience. For the sake of clarity, this ( - ) is a hyphen, this ( – ) is an en dash and this ( –– ) is an em dash. We can talk about en and em dashes another day.
Let's start with some basics:
Hyphens join attributive – they come before the noun – compound adjectives:
Example: It is a well-known fact that sharks enjoy swimming.
Example: The girl was looking for a bright-pink hair dye.
Hyphens aren't generally needed in predicative – they come after the noun – compound adjectives:
Example: The fact that sharks enjoy swimming is well known.
Example: The girl was looking for a hair dye that was bright pink.
Hyphens are not needed in attributive compounds made up of nouns:
Example: She needed to create some social media copy.
Example: They wanted to achieve toll booth standardisation.
[Yes, I would rephrase this to: They wanted to standardise toll booths. But that's another post.]
Adverbial phrases ending in -ly are not hyphenated:
Example: The beautifully frosted cake was not for sale.
Example: The newly discovered species was hugely significant.
Hyphens are also used in compound nouns:
Example: They installed a burglar alarm to avoid break-ins.
Example: Take-up for the offer was low.
But hyphens are not needed when you use the same words as a phrasal verb:
Example: They installed the burglar alarm because they didn't want people to break in.
Example: Few people wanted to take up the offer.
Numbers between 21 and 99 should be hyphenated when written as words:
Example: She has twenty-one candles on her cake.
Example: He wanted ninety-nine red balloons.
[No, he hadn't realised balloons are bad for the environment).
Fractions that don't begin with a should be hyphenated:
Example: She gave him one-third of her pizza.
But: He gave her a third of his pizza.
And note the difference between these two examples:
Example: They had a two-year-old.
[Used like a compound noun.]
But: Their child was two years old.
[Acting like a predicative adjective.]
Compound adjectives made up of an adjective and participle (past or present) should be hyphenated wherever they sit in the sentence:
Example: The bird was very good-looking.
Example: The girl is very open-minded.
Italics foreign phrases should not be hyphenated if they aren't hyphenated in the original language:
Example: It was an ex post decision.
Example: It was an ex officio honour.
Capitalised compounds should not be hyphenated:
Latin American writings.
Old Testament stories.
You can capitalise the second element in a capitalised and hyphenated compound (e.g. in a heading) – or not:
Example: First-Class Passengers
Example: First-class Passengers
Use a hyphen to avoid confusion or mispronunciation, for example where vowels or consonants collide or repeat:
Example: It was a predetermined decision.
Example: Re-entry was forbidden.
Example: It was non-negotiable.
But: Cooperate and coordinate are generally not hyphenated.
Use a hyphen to avoid confusion with another word:
Example: They decided to re-cover the book.
[They decided they would cover it again.]
Example: They wanted to recover the book.
[They wanted to get the book back.]
Hyphenate prefixes before a capitalised name, numeral or date:
Example: They were fiercely anti-Trump.
Example: She is talking about pre-1980s Britain.
Ex- is generally followed by a hyphen:
Example: She had three ex-husbands.
Example: He was an ex-convict.
[But, rather than double-hyphenating a compound noun that follows ex-, for example ex-prime-minister, suggest rewording to avoid hyphen overload, for example former prime minister.]
Compass points are hyphenated:
Example: south-east, south-south-west.
Capitalised compounds (in geography) are not generally hyphenated:
Example: South East Asia (more common in UK English).
[But Southeast Asia is more common in US English.]
And, finally, in compounds that come from two names, use a hyphen where the first element cannot stand alone:
Example: Sino-Soviet relations.
Example: Indo-European origins.
[But, where two names have equal weight in a compound, use an en rule, for example Marxist–Leninist leanings. But more about those in another post.]
Don't want to worry about all this? Get in touch and I'll do it for you.
Whether you’re working on a blog post, a business report or an academic paper, small details like punctuation and word choice can make a big difference to your writing. If you found this post helpful, you’ll find more practical tips on grammar, punctuation and writing in my other blogs. Or feel free to get in touch if you need professional support.
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