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The hyphen ‐ is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. [1]The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash –, em dash — and others), which are wider, or with the minus sign −, which is also wider and usually drawn a little higher to match the crossbar in the plus sign +.
Hyphenated last names usually correspond to both last names of one of the parents, but both last names can be hyphenated, so some Hispanics may legally have two double-barrelled last names corresponding to both last names of both parents. Many Spanish scholars use a pen name, where they enter a hyphen between their last names to avoid being ...
Fractions as modifiers are hyphenated: "two-thirds majority", but if numerator or denominator are already hyphenated, the fraction itself does not take a hyphen: "a thirty-three thousandth part". (Fractions used as nouns have no hyphens: "I ate two thirds of the pie.") Comparatives and superlatives in compound adjectives also take hyphens:
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In the tables, the hyphen has two different meanings. A hyphen after the letter indicates that it must be at the beginning of a syllable, e.g., j - in jumper and ajar. A hyphen before the letter indicates that it cannot be at the beginning of a word, e.g., - ck in sick and ticket.
A hyphenation algorithm is a set of rules, especially one codified for implementation in a computer program, that decides at which points a word can be broken over two lines with a hyphen. For example, a hyphenation algorithm might decide that impeachment can be broken as impeach-ment or im-peachment but not impe-achment .
One approach is to delimit separate words with a non-alphanumeric character. The two characters commonly used for this purpose are the hyphen ("-") and the underscore ("_"); e.g., the two-word name " two words " would be represented as " two-words " or " two_words ".
If the compound modifier that would otherwise be hyphenated is changed to a post-modifier—one which is located after the modified noun phrase—then the hyphen is conventionally not necessary: the actress is well known. Finally, the word very in a compound modifier is generally not accompanied by a hyphen. [11]