September 16, 2011

Restaurants, Hyphens, and Word Location

Few business writers know a simple technique to decide whether to add a hyphen to a two-word descriptive phrase. The following sentences feature an incorrect hyphen in red and a correct hyphen in green:

You’d be hard-pressed to find any other restaurant cooks afforded such luxury. Cooks rarely eat restaurant-quality food at work.

— “Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse turning 40,” sfgate.com, August 14, 2011

To determine whether you should add a hyphen, locate the noun or pronoun that a two-word or multiword phrase describes.

In the first sentence, the phrase “hard-pressed” describes the pronoun “you.” The hyphen between the two words is incorrect because the descriptive phrase follows the pronoun.

The hyphen in “restaurant-quality” is correct because the two-word phrase comes before the noun it describes: “food.”

Hyphenation is usually as easy as remembering to add the hyphen only when a two-word phrase comes before a noun or pronoun.

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Write It Well’s book Essential Grammar includes two full chapters on correct punctuation, including whether to include hyphens after words that end in -ly.

We’ve made all the book’s exercises available as a free download here to accompany the e-book, which is now available on Amazon.com!

Do you have an important document but not enough time to untangle your sentences or double-check your punctuation? Just use Write It Well’s editing services to make sure your readers follow your ideas and respect your voice.