Hyphens, En Dashes, Em Dashes
Q. When does one use hyphenation to break words? I already looked at the Manual on page 289 and still have some questions. I have heard that when the text has a jagged right edge no hyphens should occur and when text is justified it is allowed. What about magazines, leaflets, fliers, catalogs? Can one be more liberal in these and if so is there some guideline on this?
A. These are mostly aesthetic judgments that we leave to a designer’s specification. Different publications might have different tolerances, depending on the look the designer wants to effect. Hyphenation is often necessary in ragged right justification (see CMOS 7.45: “Even in material with an unjustified right-hand margin, word breaks are needed to avoid exceedingly uneven lines”). Chicago specifications call for no more than three consecutive hyphens, however ( CMOS 3.11).
