When to Hyphenate Prefixes and Suffixes

If you need to hyphenate prefixes and suffixes perfectly, you have to consult a style guide. There are simply too many special circumstances and exceptions to commit them all to memory. For example, in AP style you hyphenate co-worker but not coworking. But if you just want to hyphenate prefixes and suffixes well, not perfectly, here's a guideline: Omit the hyphen unless it seems too weird that way. So ungentle is fine with no hyphen, but unAmerican looks weird, so hyphenate it: un-American. Here's more detail.

Tags: GRAMMAR, HYPHENATING PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES, hyphens

This entry was posted on Monday, January 20th, 2025 at 11:59 am and is filed under this week's podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.