A Hyphen-Free World

Argh! I just can’t stand it anymore! I’ve been doing this purple-bracelet “stop complaining” exercise for almost three weeks now (and am on my record 5th day of not complaining) but I can’t hold it in any longer because every time I look at the half inch of rubber encircling my wrist I want to gouge a little hyphen between “Complaint” and “Free.” It’s “A Complaint-Free World,” people, not “A Complaint Free World”! Oh the irony of complaining about the "complaint free" bracelet. But really!

The general populace seems to have hyphen-phobia. I don’t know why, but it bothers me. My inner copyeditor cringes when I see “a fat free food.” Ack! If I get paid to be picky about grammar does it still count as complaining? We’ll get back to that.

I am hyper-sensitive to hyphens lately because one of my Twitter friends posted a question asking whether the phrase “gluten free” should be hyphenated. My instinct was that it is, but to get some additional information I searched for “hyphens” on the Grammar Girl site and also posted the question to the Grammar Group at LinkedIn. This led to some lively discussion, the consensus of which was that you hyphenate before a noun but not after it.

Why is this? Here’s my best explanation: hyphens group modifiers together for clarity. Say you have a red brick house. Is it a red house? Yes. Is it a brick house? Yes. Therefore, no hyphen is needed. However, what if you have a “gluten free recipe.” Is it a gluten recipe? No. Is it a free recipe? No. Therefore, a hyphen is needed to group the modifiers together so you know the recipe has no gluten. It’s a gluten-free recipe.

Why then do you not hyphenate after the noun, e.g. “the recipe is gluten free”? The temptation is to throw in extra hyphens just in case, e.g. “the recipe is gluten-free.” But it’s just as bad to over-hyphenate as to under-hyphenate, and it really isn’t necessary. Here’s why: when the modifier comes after the noun, it’s only modifying the one word immediately after it. So we ask ourselves, “What kind of ‘free’ is it?” and the answer is “gluten.” It’s gluten free.

So “The world is complaint free,” but it’s not "A Complaint Free World." And it’s not a complaint-free world anymore, either at least after this post. I’m going to switch my bracelet now and start back at Day 1. But it was totally worth it.

Comments

[adam807]

I'm a fan of hyphens, but in all of your examples doesn't context provide the meaning just as well as the hyphen would? The whole before-the-noun/after-the-noun thing seems needlessly complicated to me.

[Janine Falcon]

I love hyphens. Use them all the time. Your hyphen peeve was TOTALLY worth your instant rewind to day one, Louise!

adam807, perhaps this is a less complex explanation: when two or more words designed to function as adjectives appear before the noun, they are actually serving as one word, so should be hyphenated. Let's use the recipe as an example. "Gluten" and "free" are being used together to describe the recipe. Therefore, it's a gluten-free recipe.

How's that for a makes-things-a-tad-simpler explanation?

[Tom Gibson]

Hi Louise.

I can't contribute to the what's correct or not discussion, but I do like hyphens. They show you care about form, and care for the reader.

I make sure I get them in there when they fit because they eliminate, albeit tiny, some mental work of the part of the reader. And, as I have a tendency to 'noun stack', they help to reduce the stack.

Tom @tomwgibson

[Kyla]

It's not about whether it comes before the noun or after it at all. @Janine Falcon has it exactly right ("when two or more words designed to function as adjectives appear before the noun, they are actually serving as one word, so should be hyphenated") and even explained it better than I could!
That said, I totally understand the urge to carve a hyphen into the bracelet... I probably would have done it after about a day!

[Kat Nagel]

Thank you!

I put the hyphen in my bracelet before it even went on my wrist. It still bothered me, though -- a constant reminder that most people don't care as much as I do about such things. So...I ditched the 'official' bracelet.

Now, I use another bracelet or a rubber band. Doesn't really matter what it is, as long as I can feel it on my wrist. A blank reminder can also serve for another habit-building exercise, assuming I ever master this one .

[Mary Cullen]

I love this post! I'm glad you broke your complaint-free pledge to highlight this.

To which LinkedIn grammar group do you belong? I'd like to check it out.

[Kate Rugani]

I love this too. And I referenced it and Mary Cullen's blog in a post on one of my own punctuation pet peeves: when people use gratuitous quotes to highlight a word (such as "Free" gift with purchase!) Well is it free, or isn't it?

As for etching punctuation into objects, I'll admit I've done it. My address book bears the following Danish proverb: "The Road to a Friends House is Never Long." I just had to ink in the apostrophe.

[JoAnna]

I started to write a comment about the whole gluten free thing when I realized that I've gotten so wrapped up in the hyphen debate that I've confused myself. I love words, but maybe we should go the German route and just start squishing stuff together.

[Louise]

Janine, I love your explanation - very concise! Good to hook up with you on Twitter too.

[Louise]

Adam, the context does provide the meaning in the examples I gave, but what about a crazy sexy blonde? Is she crazy-sexy or just crazy? There is a difference ;-) Janine has a nice explanation below also.