Images de page
PDF
ePub

499. Disunited words. In general, noun phrases in which the words keep their meaning, whether hyphened or not, may be written as separate words; if their meaning changes, they should be united by the hyphen (for example, a 'man of peace' is a man who is disposed to have peace; a 'man of war' is a man who fights, a warrior, a soldier; a 'man-of-war' is a warship; see § 549, c):

1. Post office, water wheel, dining room, hymn book, fellow creature, letter writing, machine shop, lightning rod, high school, oak tree, apple pie, drawing paper, tax collector, pen filler, life preserver, school committee, proof reader, commander in chief, secretary treasurer, actor manager, head master (but, head-mastership), lieutenant colonel (but, lieutenant-colonelcy).

2. But, drawing-room (= reception room; compare 'drafting room = a room for drafting), bull's-eye, jack-o'-lantern, son-in-law, man-of-war, forget-me-not.

NOTE. When the phrases are in the possessive (genitive) case, the hyphen sometimes adds clearness: proof-readers' marks; the commander-in-chief's headquarters.

500. United words. When words are to be united, being felt as single words, Webster omits the hyphen if the compound forms are familiar or not confusing to the eye:

1. Textbook, railroad, grandfather, masterpiece, nutshell, manservant, onlooker, officeholder, windowpane, fireproof, homelike, doorstep, anybody, everybody, sometimes, plowboy, schoolgirl, schoolhouse, nonconductor, nonessential, nonresident, anticlimax, prehistoric, aircraft.

2. But, ex-president (ex-President Adams; § 436), passer-by, lookers-on, self-preservation, non-Quaker, anti-imperialist, preHomeric, helter-skelter.

NOTE. When the second part of a noun phrase is an adjective, the words are generally united by the hyphen: court-martial (§ 34), attorney-general, postmaster-general, knight-errant (§ 34); but, notary public (§ 34).

501. Today, etc. The familiar words today, tonight, and tomorrow are still hyphened very generally. The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives the preference to the unhyphened form. "It seems absurd to keep any longer the division in to-day and to-morrow." —The King's English.

502. Compound adjectives. Compound attributive (or adherent) adjectives (§ 113, N.) are readily formed by the union of two or more words. Such forms are hyphened to avoid ambiguity (otherwise a compound adjective might be mistaken for two single adjectives):

1. The post-office employees, dining-room furniture, machineshop methods, high-school pupils.

2. An olive-green coat, deep-blue sea, bright-eyed girl, doll-faced boy, would-be captain, two-handled cup, ten-foot pole, two-gallon jars, long-distance telephone, first-year studies, nineteenth-century literature, right-hand road, one-man power, five-cent fare, fiveminute talks, deep-sea fishing, twenty-four-pound shot, hand-tomouth existence, long-talked-of arrangement, a silk-and-cotton fabric, North-American Indians, South-African rubies; 'in those East-Indian seas' (DICKENS).

NOTE I. In such phrases as 'a sad day's work', 'a two weeks' voyage', no hyphen is used. Ordinary phrases, when used as predicate adjectives (§ 113, N.), are not hyphened: 'It is an out-of-the-way place'; but, The place is out of the way'.

NOTE 2. Proper names, having the nature of a unit, do not require hyphens: Bunker Hill Monument; Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.

503. Misuse of hyphen. Avoid using the hyphen in German fashion:

1. Sitting-room and dining-room furniture. (Not 'Sitting- and dining-room furniture '.)

2. Grammar-school and high-school teachers. (Not Grammarand high-school teachers '.) Still better, 'Teachers in the grammar school and the high school'.

3. A three-year or four-year course. (Not 'A three- or four-year course '.)

NOTE. Do not use the hyphen to form uncouth compounds:

1. Methods of teaching foreign languages. (Not' Foreign-languageteaching methods '.)

2. A clerk in the Bank of Commerce. (Not A Bank-of-Commerce clerk '.)

504. Adverbs. A participle used as an attributive (adherent) adjective (§ 113, N.) may be modified by an adverb without the use of the hyphen; but such adverbs as best, better, ill, long, loud, and well, which may be mistaken for adjectives (§ 258), are joined to the participle:

1. A gently flowing brook crossed the meadow; a never ending day; a somewhat troubled look.

2. The best-laid plans; a better-looking house; a hard-boiled egg; a long-pointed pencil; a much-needed reform; a well-trained dog; a picked-up supper; a played-out method; ill-humored people. 3. Half-baked measures; but, half past five (without hyphen).

505. Hyphen omitted. When the participle is used either appositively or predicatively (§ 113, N.), the adverb and the participle are not joined:

1. The messenger, well instructed, answered no questions. 2. The letter was long forgotten.

506. Cardinal numbers. The cardinal numbers from one to nine, and the ordinals from first to ninth, inclusive, are joined by the hyphen to the words twenty, thirty, and so forth, up to ninety inclusive:

1. Twenty-one, forty-nine, ninety-seven, one hundred and sixtyfive; but, one hundred and one, one thousand and one.

2. Twenty-first, forty-ninth, ninety-seventh.

507. Ordinal numbers. In the writing of ordinal numbers above one hundred the cardinal forms hundred, thousand, and so forth are used as ordinals, and only the last number takes the ordinal form:

One hundred and first; the one hundred and twenty-first Psalm. (It is not customary to hyphen the entire adjective, 'one-hundredand-twenty-first', as some writers do; see § 128, a, 2, 6.)

508. Fractions. Words representing fractions need not be hyphened unless they form compound adjectives:

1. We ate two thirds of the melon. (Thirds is a noun, modified by the adjective two.)

2. The law was passed by a two-thirds vote.

509. End of line. The hyphen is used to divide a word at the end of a line (do not use a hyphen at the beginning of a line). Do not divide a word unless it has two or more syllables; do not divide it when there is a syllable of only one or two letters to be carried to the next line :

1. Scream, seemed, could, tripped. (Incapable of division.)

2. Adjec-tive, book-case, sing-ing, posi-tion.

3. Many, needed, proper, only. (Not to be divided.)

NOTE. Avoid such divisions as 'star-vation', 'obser-vation', 'generation', 'happi-ness '; write 'starva-tion', and so forth. "The principle is that the part of the word left at the end of a line should suggest the part commencing the next line."- Oxford University Press.

THE APOSTROPHE

510. Apostrophe. The apostrophe is used in forming the possessive case (§ 41); and in forming the plurals of letters, signs, and the like (§ 35). It is also used in marking the omission of a letter or letters in contracted words (do not confuse contractions with abbreviations, § 458); do not space between words except to distinguish 's (= is) from the sign of the possessive case (§ 41):

1. Isn't, doesn't, 'tis, can't, don't, they're, I'll (= I will), ne'er (= never), o'er (= over), o'clock (= of the clock). See isn't, § 417. 2. The boy's right; that's it; what's the matter?

ITALIC

511. Italic. Italic mars the looks of the page, and should be used as sparingly as possible. It is seldom necessary to italicize words for the sake of emphasis; ordinarily the sentence should be rewritten. In the Bible the italicized words are not emphatic; they are so printed because they do not occur in the original manuscripts. In mathematical works the theorems and the like are usually in italic. (For the method of indicating italic in manuscript, see § 515.)

512. Titles of books, plays, etc. For the titles of books, plays, and the like, see § 448.

NOTE. "In many works it is now common to print titles of books in italic, instead of in inverted commas [quotation marks; § 492]. This must be determined by the directions given with the copy, but the practice must be uniform throughout the work."- Oxford University Press.

513. Names of newspapers, etc.; ships. The names of newspapers and other periodicals, and of ships, are usually in italic; as a rule, do not italicize'or capitalize the; do not italicize the name of the city or town where a periodical is printed unless it is a part of the title :

1. He takes the London Daily News; the New York Times; the Outlook.

2. We visited the Philadelphia; the King George; the Revenge. (Ships.)

514. Foreign words, etc. Foreign words and phrases, unless Anglicized, should be in italic. The following illustrative words and phrases (selected from the manual of the Oxford University Press) will be found pronounced in § 423: a. Words and phrases not Anglicized:

adagio

ad nauseam

au revoir

billet-doux

bourgeoisie carte blanche

« PrécédentContinuer »