Q. In my office we have noticed a trend in Merriam-Webster to show previously closed compound words as hyphenated, such as “antiracist” and “antilabor.” CMOS clearly has a spare hyphenation style and lists prefixes as usually closed. Which should we follow when the two sources disagree? I would lean toward continuing to close compounds like “antiracist” and “antilabor” and use CMOS as our source, but we have been going in circles for a year now on this debate. Please help.
A. What you are noticing is the result of Merriam-Webster’s decision to create individual entries for a whole bunch of compounds that in earlier versions of its dictionaries—both the one at Merriam-Webster.com and the printed Collegiate—were simply listed under the applicable prefixes.
In the earlier lists, most of these terms were closed, clearly as a matter of editorial principle rather than (as for the main dictionary entries) common usage. For example, if you consult a first printing of the Collegiate (11th ed., 2003), you’ll find, under the prefix anti-, “antifur” and “antiwar”—along with “antiracist” and “antilabor” and dozens of other closed compounds. Only a term like “anti-immigration” (double i) or “anti-Soviet” (capital S) merits a hyphen. Under non- and pre-, hyphenation is strictly limited to terms with capital letters (e.g., “nonnews” but “non-Marxist” and “preelectric” but “pre-Christmas”).
And though the majority of compounds formed with prefixes remain closed in Merriam-Webster, all but one of the unhyphenated examples mentioned above are now hyphenated, either as a main entry or as a variant (“antifur” is the sole exception).
Going forward, there are some definite advantages to following the editorial approach described in section 4 of the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.96. It’s easier than looking up each term in Merriam-Webster, and the results will be more consistent. Plus, you can invoke rule no. 3 (in the intro to section 4) and add a hyphen to a compound like “antifur,” which is awkward without one, despite what the dictionary might have. Meanwhile, Merriam-Webster can continue to act as arbiter in any remaining cases of doubt.
For some additional perspective, see our Shop Talk post on this subject.