[Forum] RE: Hyphenate the phrase "church planting"

Great question! Chicago style doesn't distinguish between your two examples and would hyphenate both. If your organization wants to make a distinction and hyphenate only one, that's your call. However, Chicago recommends what it does for good reasons—and in this case, simplicity is key. You may f

[Forum] Hyphenate, or not?

I am proofreading an article about wastewater grit removal systems. (I know you're all jealous!) Do you think I should hyphenate grit-removal, or not? It is a compound adjective, but I think it's clear without the hyphen (especially to the niche audience of this newsletter).

[Forum] RE: Twentieth-century America

I'm looking for that answer myself. My inclination is to hyphenate it since it's being used as a compound adjective, but I'd like an authoritative answer from Chicago Manual since I'm changing it on copy I'm editing. If it were my own copy, I'd just hyphenate it without a question.

[Forum] RE: To Hyphenate, or Not to Hyphenate

Inspection Ready would actually stand alone, and then has some text underneath like: Inspection Ready Tools to Help Design Code-Compliant Buildings

[Forum] RE: eco-: to hyphenate or not to hyphenate

[quote='UserTK' pid='8739' dateline='1362428087']It also whiffs of "organic," which meant something until everybody started slapping it on their ecolabels.[/quote] Now, who ever said that editors don't have a sense of humor? :D (This totally cracked me up, UserTK.)

[Forum] RE: compound adjective hyphenation

CMOS 7.81 http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/16/ch07/ch07_sec081.html, in discussing this issue merely says that it is "usually unnecessary" to hyphenate after the noun, even if Webster lists it as being hyphenated - not that you must never do it. I would judge each instance on its readability.

[Forum] RE: eco-: to hyphenate or not to hyphenate

I think I would retain the hyphen in "eco-friendly" since it has a slightly different shade of meaning, applied to things that are friendly TO the environment rather than to things that are simply related to "green" initiatives, if that makes any sense. Plus "ecofriendly" just looks weird.

[Forum] Would you hyphenate these?

Would you hyphenate these? Which are good? I've numbered them for ease of responding. 1. a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity 2. a one-in-a-million chance b. The Associated Press seems to favor "a 1-in-1 million chance." Is this correct as well? 3. a hard-and-fast rule 4. two-and-a-half men

[Forum] RE: To hyphenate or not to hyphenate

"Ring toss game" might be the name of the game, but that doesn't mean that the three words together make up a noun or that a hyphen is not appropriate here. "Game" is still the noun, and "ring toss" is the modifier. Go study the hyphenation table and scroll down to "adjective + noun" and the ver

[Forum] eco-: to hyphenate or not to hyphenate

I'm editing an article in which the author uses "eco-label." Words like "ecospecies" and "ecocatastrophe" aren't hyphenated, but they are both found in Merriam-Webster, while "ecolabel" is not. So ... what to do? I'm tempted to retain the author's hyphenation ("eco-label") merely because it's made u