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