Hyphens, En Dashes, Em Dashes
Q. When referring to a telephone call for which the calling party is not charged, is it (a) a “toll free call,” (b) a “tollfree call,” or (c) a “toll-free call.” My own preference is for c first, then b. However, our marketing bunch uses a. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. This is driving me nuts (or at least nuttier than usual).
A. We also prefer c: Adjectival compounds formed from a noun (e.g., toll) followed by an adjective (e.g., free) are usually hyphenated before the modified noun. Example b is inadvisable because "toll" is not a prefix and "free" is not a suffix, and, for a variety of reasons, “toll-free” has not evolved to become one word (i.e., “tollfree” is not in the standard dictionaries). Example a is okay, because there's really no ambiguity—but, again, we prefer c.
