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Compound Adverbs
Avoid compound adverbs like heretofore, therefore,
and so on; they will make your writing sound brittle and overly
formal.
Describing Nouns
Hyphens, although they look tiny and insignificant,
have great powers of clarification.
Use them in compound modifiers that come before nouns.
Unclear: Elana’s
what the hell attitude always got her in trouble.Better: Elana’s what-the-hell attitude always got her in trouble.
Use them when a few phrases modify one noun.
Unclear: That
typical twenty first century guilt free attitude disgusts Moira.Clear: That typical twenty-first-century guilt-free attitude disgusts Moira.
Note that it’s almost always correct to hyphenate before
a noun and to open up after a verb.
• The well-bred boy never burps after
eating.
• Alistair, who is exceedingly well bred,
pats his mouth with a napkin after every bite.
Plurals of Compounds
Be careful when forming the plurals of compound words.
Some compound words take an s at the end of the
last word to become plural, as do most nouns; others are trickier.
• attorney general ——> attorneys general
• court-martial ——> courts-martial
• mother-in-law ——> mothers-in-law
Possessive Compounds
Generally, to make compound nouns possessive, you can
just add an apostrophe and an s to the last word.
• My mother-in-law’s visits are always
contentious.
• The copy chief’s buffet lunch was delicious.
But in some cases, making compound nouns possessive
gets hairy. If you’re stumped, you might want to rework the sentence
in order to avoid the problem altogether.
Awkward: The
courts’-martial scandalous nature led to frantic press interest.Better: The scandalous nature of the courts-martial led to frantic press interest.
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