#Hyphen n dash m dash plus#

The three relevant terms are bison, shoulder blade, and hoe, so the clearest version is the last: “bison shoulder-blade hoe.”

To start with the bison, that example refers to a hoe fashioned from a bison’s shoulder blade.

#Hyphen n dash m dash plus#

See CMOS 7.85: “With the exception of proper nouns (such as United States) and compounds formed by an adverb ending in ly plus an adjective (see 7.86), it is never incorrect to hyphenate adjectival compounds before a noun.” The goal of adding such hyphens is to clarify the meaning of the text. See also the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.89, section 1, under “number + noun” section 3, under “century” and section 4, under “mid.”Ī. (2) The word mid, unlike early, isn’t an ordinary adjective instead, it usually combines with any word that it modifies-either with a hyphen (“mid-twentieth”) or without (“midyear”). Two things to note: (1) It wouldn’t be wrong to refer to “early-twentieth-century history” (with two hyphens), but we think the extra hyphen (after early) is unnecessary (see CMOS 7.87-and note that early is an adjective, not an adverb, and therefore not subject to the - ly exception described in CMOS 7.86).

When these century phrases are used as nouns, we’d retain only the hyphen after mid: “in the early twentieth century,” “in the mid-twentieth century,” and, by extension, “in the early to mid-twentieth century.” But when they’re used as modifiers before another noun, extra hyphenation would be needed: “early twentieth-century history,” “mid-twentieth-century history,” and “early-to-mid-twentieth-century history.”