Hyphens, En Dashes, Em Dashes
Q. What’s the proper hyphenation for “non gun owners”? Section 6.80 of the 16th edition tells me how to treat compound adjectives but gives no guidance on nouns. Section 7.85, no. 4, “non” with a noun + gerund (non-beer-drinking), is different from my problem of “non” with two nouns. Mine functions as a noun, Chicago’s as an adjective (a non-beer-drinking group).
A. If CMOS doesn’t include an example of exactly what you’re looking for, look at similar constructions and try to extrapolate from them. In this case, let’s accept “gun owners” as two words and “non” as a combining form and then browse around CMOS looking for examples. We find the hyphenation of “non-beer-drinking” at 7.85 and the use of an en dash at 6.80 (post–World War II). Thus, with “non-gun-owners” and “non–gun owners” as good candidates, the obvious alternatives begin to look like noncontenders (nongunowners, non gunowners, non gun owners, nongun owners). You might work through this differently, depending on the style or dictionary you’re using, but in any case, pick a style from the good candidates, make a note in your style sheet, and move on.