Hyphenating open compound noun + participle?

Question

How should "Web services based" be hyphenated? "Web services" seems to be a compound noun these days, so "Web services-based" doesn't seem quite right.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]How should "Web services based" be hyphenated? "Web services" seems to be a compound noun these days, so "Web services-based" doesn't seem quite right.[/nq]
When (as commonly) it functions as an adjective,
we write "web-service-based."

Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]How should "Web services based" be hyphenated? "Web services" seems to be a compound noun these days, so "Web services-based" doesn't seem quite right.[/nq]
If you are using the words as an adherent (leading) compound adjective, as in
Amazon's web-services-based Associate program is
highly unreliable.
you need to hyphenate the lot, as shown, to indicate that it is to be taken as a single concept.
If you are using it copulatively, I think you would still need to hyphenate the adjectival compound "web services":

Amazon's "Associate" program is partly web-services based.

Adherent compound adjectives are always fully hyphenated. When a compound adjective is copulative or appositive, hyphenation is usually not needed, but must be supplied when confusion might arise.
Her remarks were thought-provoking.
means something different from
Her remarks were thought provoking.
It looks to me as if
Amazon's "Associate" program is partly web services based.

is, if not ambiguous, at least unsound, as the scanning eye leads the quick brain to wonder what a "partly web" thing could be.
An appositive use, which looks to me strained if possible at all, would follow the same principle:
Amazon operates a program web-services based.

Cordially,
Eric Walker
My opinions on English are available at
http://owlcroft.com/english/

Hyphenating open compound noun + participle?

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