7 Tips for Using Suspensive Hyphenation

7 Tips for Using Suspensive Hyphenation 7 Tips for Using Suspensive Hyphenation 7 Tips for Using Suspensive Hyphenation By Mark Nichol Often, when both items in a pair of hyphenated phrases have a common element, the first instance of that element can be elided, or omitted, without erasing the connection; the incomplete phrase is implied to have the same form as the complete one. However, as shown in these examples, it’s essential to treat the phrases, especially their hyphens, correctly: 1. â€Å"The holding pond’s collapse sent more than a billion gallons of arsenic and mercury-laden sludge into the river.† The sludge was laden with a combination of arsenic and mercury; arsenic was not released separately from mercury-laden sludge. Because laden can serve to team up with both arsenic and mercury, it is omitted from where it might first appear; the phrase â€Å"arsenic-laden† is merely implied. A hyphen is attached to arsenic to express the elision: â€Å"The holding pond’s collapse sent more than a billion gallons of arsenic- and mercury-laden sludge into the river.† 2. â€Å"The company provides small- and medium-size businesses with service and support.† The hyphen following small implies that â€Å"small-size† is the intended construction, but size is not appropriate in association with small: â€Å"The company provides small and medium-size businesses with service and support.† 3. â€Å"The 1-2 year old wolf is still a baby.† The confusing adjective string before wolf is meant to express that the animal is either a 1-year-old or a 2-year-old. You can write that an animal is 1-2 years old, but here you must hyphenate the construction â€Å"(number)-year-old† to modify the noun that follows. The correct full form of the sentence would be â€Å"The 1-year-old to 2-year-old wolf is still a baby,† but the first instance of â€Å"year-old† can be elided: â€Å"The 1- to 2-year-old wolf is still a baby.† Note the letter space following 1 this element has no connection to to, so don’t connect them. 4. â€Å"Marc Antony was seen as Cleopatra’s drink-and-love besotted dupe.† The trainlike coupling of â€Å"drink-and-love† makes no grammatical sense. Observers thought of Marc Antony as separately besotted by drink and love, so he was a drink-besotted dope and a love-besotted dope, or, as follows: â€Å"Marc Antony was seen as Cleopatra’s drink- and love-besotted dupe.† 5. â€Å"The difference between pre- and post-Civil War attitudes was profound.† The elision of â€Å"Civil War† after pre- is correct, but when a prefix or suffix is attached (or implied to attach) to a proper noun or to more than one term, a sturdy en dash is called in to substitute for the little hyphen: â€Å"The difference between pre and postCivil War attitudes was profound.† 6. â€Å"She felt underpaid and -appreciated.† Though use of suspensive hyphenation in the case of words with otherwise closed prefixes (â€Å"The fund was alternately over- and underfunded†) is correct, avoid applying it with closed suffixes: â€Å"She felt underpaid and underappreciated.† 7. â€Å"The box contained a stack of 3- by 5-inch cards.† By signals that this sentence does not refer to 3-inch cards and 5-inch cards; this statement is in a separate class. When two dimensions refer to a single object, link the entire phrasal adjective together: â€Å"The box contained a stack of 3-by-5-inch cards.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Punctuation category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:The Meaning of "To a T"80 Idioms with the Word TimeI wish I were...