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Victo Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Amalgamation of Hyphens & the N-Dash In Phrases

I hope you understand what I am asking below.

1) He was a trench coat–wearing detective. (Use an n-dash after 'coat', or do we write it with hyphens throughout, as in '...a trench-coat-wearing detective'?)

2) pop music–influenced lyrics

(N-dash after 'music', or use hyphens throughout, as in 'pop-music-influenced lyrics'?)

3) He was the number one–rated seed. (Same question as above as it relates to the n-dash, or do we use hyphens throughout, as in '...number-one-rated seed'?)

But if a noun follows the final word in the element, I'm told to use hyphens throughout.

4) organized-retail-crime business

(Just two hyphens in this, correct?)

But:

5) organized-retail-crime–related thefts

Here a hyphen is inserted after 'organized' and 'retail' but not after 'crime', because the word that follows—'related'—is not a noun. Here we would use the n-dash after 'crime'. Is this correct?

How would you punctuate these correctly exactly as they're written?


Thank you.

  

Top answer

victo I hope you understand what I am asking below. All too well.

  • victo I hope you understand what I am asking below.
  • All too well.
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2 Answers
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victoI hope you understand what I am asking below.
All too well.
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Oh, I'm sure. < chortle >

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