Editorial Tip of the Week: Compounds & Hyphens

Compound words are a particularly fascinating feature of language. They essentially represent how new words are created and enter common usage. It is a fairly democratic process: anybody might invent a more accurate word to keep pace with a nascent function or idea. It is up to the general populace to take the word and run with it, or leave it by the wayside.

Compound words are expressed in three different ways.
1) as an open compound = the compound is spelled as two words {science fiction}
2) as a closed compound = the compound is spelled as one word {bookstore}
3) as a hyphenated compound = a hyphen connects two words {editor-in-chief}

Generally speaking, a new word enters the scene as an open compound, transitions using a hyphen and is considered common usage as a closed compound. Our vocabulary for virtual technology is the most obvious arena where we see this phenomenon. Consider the tentative electronic mail to e-mail to the now common, email.

Not that it's always an easy evolution. The rules governing compound words and hyphenation are fickle and abundant -- writers and editors will want to keep a dictionary and a style guide handy. For this week's tip, here are a few basic rules to get you started.

Adverbs
Most of the time adverbs ending in -ly are explicit enough not to warrant a hyphen, neither before nor after the noun, but The Copyeditor's Handbook warns us about ambiguous combinations: "He too readily agreed. [Means He also agreed.] He too-readily agreed. [Means He agreed too readily.]"

Compound modifiers
Attributive Adjectives come before a noun and usually include a hyphen for clarity's sake {she is a short-fiction writer}
Predicate Adjectives follow a noun and it's usually clear which noun they describe, so hyphenation is not necessary but can be used if desired {she writes short fiction}

Numbers
Numbers twenty-one to ninety-nine are hyphenated

The Chicago Manual of Style has several comprehensive compound and hyphenation lists, sorted by Type (according to grammatical function), Formed with Specific Terms, and Formed with Prefixes. If you don't have the hard copy handy, see the website.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Subject-Verb Agreement

In the throes of a particularly gripping surge of creative genius, even the tidiest writer may glance over the basic principle of subject-verb agreement. That is, "The number of a verb must agree with the number of the noun or pronoun used with it" (The Chicago Manual of Style, 5.123) or as Amy Einsohn states, "A singular subject takes a singular verb, and a plural subject takes a plural verb" (The Copyeditor's Handbook, p. 339).

Singular: Her shoe is sparkly.

Plural: Her shoes are sparkly.

Easy enough? Of course, not quite. Einsohn lists no less than twenty-five subject-verb agreement hang-ups. For instance, number twenty-three: "Titles of works. Titles of works always take a singular verb. {Dickinson's Selected Poems is a fine introduction to her work.}"

In addition to Einsohn's litany, The Elements of Style (p.9-11) is a handy go-to for the most common difficulties. True to succinct Strunk and White style, the section gets right to straightening us out:

"Words that intervene between subject and verb do not affect the number of the verb. [Incorrect] The bittersweet flavor of youth--its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges--are not soon forgotten. [Correct] The bittersweet flavor of youth--its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges--is not soon forgotten."

While the native English speaker will find many of the principles governing subject-verb agreement to be intuitive, mastering subject-verb agreement does require memorizing some rules and familiarizing oneself with resources for the obscure configurations.

In addition to the sources listed above, check out Grammar Girl's typically humorous take (with help from another grammar guru, Bonnie Trenga) on subject-verb agreement, here.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Parentheses (the round bracket)

In comparison with its fellow interrupters, the comma and the em dash, a pair of parentheses is a rather polite punctuation. Consider the following sentences: (1) Forest Park, located in Portland, is the largest wooded park in the United States. (2) Forest Park--the largest wooded park in the United States!--is located in Portland. (3) Forest Park is the largest wooded city park in the United States (and one of my favorites in Portland). Commas slyly draw a reader in before they've had a chance to notice a break and em dashes demand attention but parentheses offer humble bits of extraneous information which the reader may include or gloss over.

In addition to presenting asides and referential material (acronyms, bibliographies, page numbers, translations), parentheses are a potentially bold stylistic tool. Scholar Duncan White dedicated an essay to the subject of parentheses in Nabokov's Lolita, observing at one point how "Parentheses elucidate the theme of imprisonment, reminding the reader of Humbert's incarcerated state."

As generally unobtrusive as a pair of parentheses may seem, it is possible to overuse them. To avoid this, use square brackets to set off information within parentheses; convert parenthetical afterthoughts made in rough drafts to more artful incorporation whenever possible.

Read the abstract to Duncan White's essay, "(I have camouflaged everything, my love)": Lolita's Pregnant Parentheses, here. View Videojug's clever video on the topic here. The Chicago Manual of Style and The Copyeditor's Handbook outline further details for using parentheses.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Give me a break!

Struggling to fit words like adrenocorticotropic on the page? For an ordinary end-of-line word break, consult a dictionary. Barring some forms, outlined in the Chicago Manual of Style, words may be divided where the dots indicate. There are two important restrictions on breaking up words. The first is that single-syllable words and their verb forms are indivisible and second, one should never introduce a break that leaves one letter hanging before or after the hyphen.

The hyphen used in word division is a "soft hyphen." While hard hyphens join compound words and are permanent fixtures in a text, the soft hyphen comes and goes as text is arranged.

Amy Einsohn, in The Copyeditor's Handbook, addresses the responsibilities of authors and copyeditors when it comes to editing for correct hyphenation related to word breaks. While editing or composing, the line breaks don't always transfer into the final copy. Therefore,

Copyeditors working on hard copy...rather than checking for the correct hyphenation of a word [should mark] all soft hyphens with a "close-up and delete" sign. Copyeditors working onscreen will not encounter soft hyphens in well-prepared manuscripts because authors are instructed not to use soft hyphens. If the author has used soft hyphens...turn off the hyphenation feature, which will delete the soft hyphens from the files.

For more guidelines concerning the nuances of end-of-line breaks, including how to negotiate URLs and e-mail addresses, see section 7.33-7.45 in the Chicago Manual of Style.