Confusing hyphenation situations

Most of the time, hyphens connect two words that work together to describe a noun, as in “heat-seeking missile.” The hyphen makes clear it’s not a heat missile. It’s not a seeking missile. Neither of those words can describe missile on its own. They have to work together, to connect, to tell you about the missile.

These are called compound modifiers: words that team up to work like a modifier, usually an adjective, to describe another word. These modifiers are central to hyphenation rules, which say, basically: Hyphenate a compound modifier when doing so can prevent ambiguity. That is, don’t let your reader confuse “buffalo-riding birds” with “buffalo riding birds.”

Compound modifiers can be adverbs, too. Often, these compound adverbs come after the verb: She works part-time. And because adverbs can modify adjectives, as in “fabulously wealthy,” compound adverbs do the same: “jaw-droppingly wealthy.”

Nouns like “mock-up,” and verbs like “mass-produce” can also be hyphenated. But a lot of those are in the dictionary, meaning you don’t have to figure out on your own how to write them. Then there are prefixes and suffixes, whose hyphenation rules are a mess, widely disagreed upon and inconsistent, requiring a hyphen in “re-create” but none in “reenact.”

“Use of the hyphen is far from standardized,” the Associated Press Stylebook writes. “It can be a matter of taste, judgment and style sense. Think of hyphens as an aid to readers’ comprehension. If a hyphen makes the meaning clearer, use it. If it just adds clutter and distraction to the sentence, don’t use it.”

AP’s explanations, exceptions, special circumstances and examples go on for about 900 words, making hyphens one of the longest entries in the style guide. I had referred back to these 900ish words countless times in the years leading up to that fateful day I learned about that dry old meat. Yet I was stopped in my tracks. Was it 30-day-dry-aged beef or 30-day dry-aged beef? That is, were all those words working as a single adjective to modify “beef”?

 “At times, a writer must decide whether words preceding a noun form a single adjective that should be hyphenated as one modifier or whether some terms within are functioning independently,” I wrote in my 2010 book “The Best Punctuation Book, Period.” “For example, in choosing between ‘a discriminating-but-value-conscious shopper’ and ‘a discriminating but value-conscious shopper,’ the writer can decide based on whichever best captures the intended meaning.” Then I shared the results of a survey I gave to some professional copy editors, who all agreed that value-conscious should be hyphenated but the rest should not. Yet when I asked them about “30-day-dry-aged,” they disagreed. Two thirds said to hyphenate the whole shebang as a single compound. The remainder said it’s “30-day dry-aged.”
 

There’s no wrong answer, but I’m with the majority on this one. It’s not 30-day beef that is dry-aged. All four words in that compound build on each other to create a single meaning.

Most often, these “compounds of uncertain scope” appear in phrases like “extreme-heat-related illness.” This came up recently in my copy editing work with just one hyphen. I chose logic over looks. It’s not an extreme illness that’s heat-related. It’s the heat, not the illness, that’s extreme. 

Hyphens have fallen somewhat out of fashion, so longer compounds are getting rarer. But I’ll keep hyphenating 30-day-dry-aged beef and extreme-heat-related illness as long as the rules allow.

That awful pronunciation of 'nuclear'

In the Netflix series “Umbrella Academy,” Aidan Gallagher plays Number Five, a 58-year-old assassin and theoretical physicist trapped in a 13-year-old’s body.

A naturally brainy teen and gifted actor, Gallagher has no trouble convincing me Five is a late-middle-aged genius unlocking the mysteries of space-time to stop a world-ending apocalypse. In his performance, I believe every word — well, every word but one: nuclear. Five pronounces it “nucular.”

I know a lot of people share my feelings on this: There’s no vowel between the C and the L — no U to make the second syllable sound like “cue.” The spelling makes clear that the second syllable should be “clee.”

Regular readers of this blog know that language is seldom that simple. Just because one pronunciation is right doesn’t mean another is wrong.

“Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in (cue-lar) have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, U.S. cabinet members, and at least two U.S. presidents and one vice president,” Merriam-Webster’s dictionary notes. “While most common in the U.S., these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers.”

If you’re like me, you might find this rationale frustrating. That is, when you say, “It’s annoying that so many people pronounce it that way,’” the experts reply, “Many people pronounce it that way.” To which you reply, “I know. I just said that. That’s the problem.”

For this reason, linguists can seem at times like they’re gaslighting. But in fact, they’re just leaving out one crucial bit of information: In language, “many people do it” is the law of the land. Every word, every pronunciation and every rule of grammar was born of how people use the language. If enough of us started using “shoobeedoobee” to mean “rest assured that we’ll handle your funeral arrangements with the utmost dignity,” eventually it would mean exactly that.

Besides, for a recent column, I was happy to discover that my two-syllable pronunciation of “caramel” is fine and possibly superior. So I’d be hypocritical to insist on a phonetic pronunciation of “nuclear.”

If there’s a silver lining, for me, it’s that 20-odd years into writing about grammar, I learned a new term to describe this type of sound switch around: metathesis.

In linguistics, “metathesis” means “the process whereby a sound hops out of its proper place, so to speak, and pops up elsewhere in the word, or switches places with another sound in the word,” according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage.

Wikipedia gives examples that may strike a nerve. My favorite, straight from the sea: anenome in place of anemone. This one drives me nuts — not because people who use it wrong annoy me, but because years ago I declared myself incapable of ever using it right. Can’t spell it. Can’t pronounce it. I’ll sign any petition that banishes it from the English language.

Then there’s “cavalry” for “calvary.” This one’s more serious. If you get “anemone” wrong, the worst that can happen is people will think you’re doing a musical number from Sesame Street. But if you get cavalry wrong, you change your meaning. Merriam-Webster’s definition of calvary is “an open-air representation of the crucifixion of Jesus” or “an experience of usually intense mental suffering.” A cavalry is a component of an army, especially one on horseback.

“Jewlery” in place of “jewelry” is another common metathesis. I doubt I’ve ever pronounced this word the way it's spelled and don't plan to start anytime soon. "Asteriks” for “asterisk,” “aks” for “ask,” and “iorn” for “iron” are just a few more examples of common metatheses, and they all come with varying degrees of controversy. You can pick your likes and dislikes. Me, I’m soft on almost all these, except the incorrect pronunciation of “nuclear” and any pronunciation, right or wrong, of “anemone.”

'Data is' or 'data are'?

I don’t recommend using “data” as a singular, as in, “The data on this matter is shocking.”

“Data” is an English word that, like many words, is formed from the Latin. When we adopted it, we sort of pushed aside its Latin singular form, “datum.”

But sometimes it just seems kind of odd to treat it as a plural. “I’ve seen the data and it’s shocking” sounds less weird than “I have seen the data and they're shocking.”

If you find yourself in a situation where you’d really rather treat "data" as a singular, you can. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says it’s “singular or plural in construction.”

The dictionary adds: "Data leads a life of its own quite independent of datum, of which it was originally the plural. It occurs in two constructions: as a plural noun (like earnings), taking a plural verb and plural modifiers (as these, many, a few) but not cardinal numbers, and serving as a referent for plural pronouns (as they, them); and as an abstract mass noun (like information), taking a singular verb and singular modifiers (as this, much, little), and being referred to by a singular pronoun (it). Both constructions are standard. The plural construction is more common in print, evidently because the house style of several publishers mandates it.”

So, like so many other issues in language, it comes down to whether you’re worried what other people think of your English skills. If you’re not too worried about stickler readers judging you, then you’re free to follow Merriam-Webster’s advice.

How many syllables in 'caramel'?

Perhaps you remember this 2003 commercial: Shaquille O'Neal corrects actor Percy Daggs III when Daggs pronounces the ingredient in a new variety of Nestle Crunch as “carmel.”

“It’s caramel,” Shaq says, hitting all three syllables. “Car-a-mel. Can’t you spell?”

I’d been pronouncing it “carmel” all my life. It’s how the people around me pronounced it. It’s all I knew. But then, I grew up in the region of Florida that spawned the first Hooters restaurant, so I didn’t have much faith in the judgment or taste of the people around me. Instead, I put my faith in Shaq. I started pronouncing it “car-a-mel.”

After all, Shaq made a good point with “Can’t you spell?” Three vowels, separated by consonants, sure look like three syllables to me.

As a self-styled “language expert,” I knew I should do a little research. And I did — 22 years later. Here’s what I just learned: the pronunciation “carmel,” with two syllables, is every bit as acceptable as the three-syllable pronunciation. In fact, the two-syllable option comes first in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, which may indicate it’s more standard.

Score one for the town that gave the world chicken wings with a side of hair mousse.

Reasonable minds may disagree. Garner’s Modern American Usage, for example, is on Team Shaq, deeming the three-syllable pronunciation superior.

Jewelry is another word that’s spelled like it has three syllables but is often pronounced with just two: jool-ry. In my world, the two-syllable pronunciation is standard. I almost never hear “joo-ul-ry.”

Merriam’s dictionary seems to prefer three syllables, though it allows two, as well. The difference is subtle, almost undetectable. “Joo-ul-ry” so buries the “ul” that it sounds nearly identical to “jool-ry,” even on the audio clip on Merriam’s website.

The pronunciation you definitely want to avoid is “joo-luh-ry,” with “luh” in the middle instead of “ul.” Merriam’s dictionary calls this pronunciation nonstandard, which is dictionary-speak for “ill-advised.”

“Realtor” is another oddly pronounced word. Instead of dropping a syllable, people add one: “reel-uh-tur.” It’s a little bizarre, but if you pay attention to how your mouth moves to say “Realtor,” it’s easy to hear why the first and second syllables could benefit from a little more separation. Regardless, the three-syllable pronunciation of “Realtor” is widely considered to be wrong. The experts in my language library say it’s always just “reel-tur.”

Perhaps the most hotly debated word of this type is “homogeneous.” Some argue, passionately, that it should be pronounced “ho-mo-GEE-nee-us,” while others insist it’s “ho-MOJ-en-us.” Actually, these are two different words.

“The more common term is homogeneous,” writes Garner’s, “which means ‘of uniform characteristics.’” It’s pronounced as five syllables, with the stress on “gee.” The word “homogenous,” has just one “e” and is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable: “ho-MOJ-en-us.” It’s a term from biology that means tissues or organs are genetically related.

Many people pronounce “homogeneous” as if they’re using the other word, “homogenous.” But if you want to say that things are similar or of uniform composition, that’s not a good idea.

“Writers are best advised to use ‘homogeneous,’ and to pronounce all five syllables,” Garner’s writes.