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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 .
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 +.
Wikipedia uses four: the hyphen (sometimes called the hyphen-minus), the minus sign, the en dash, and the em dash. Hyphen (- or -, MOS:HYPHEN; known as the hyphen-minus in ASCII and Unicode) are used in many ways on Wikipedia. They are the only short, horizontal dash-like character available as a separate key on most keyboards.
Most editors can only easily enter hyphens, and that's fine, but en dashes are typographically correct, so I change incorrectly-used hyphens whenever I am copy-editing. I type literal dashes (hyphen: - en dash: – em dash —), so it doesn't ugly up the wikitext or inconvenience other editors .
Composite directions may or may not be hyphenated, depending on the variety of English adopted in the article. Southeast Asia and northwest are more common in American English; but South-East Asia and north-west in British English. In cases such as north–south dialogue and east–west orientation, use an en dash; see § En dashes: other uses.
At the end of its second-quarter earnings release, Wal-Mart dropped a bomb on the business community. Henceforth, the big-box behemoth would no longer be called "Wal-Mart," but rather "Walmart ...
A hyphen before the letter indicates that it cannot be at the beginning of a word, e.g., - ck in sick and ticket. More specific rules take precedence over more general ones, e.g., " c - before e, i, y " takes precedence over " c ".
Enter the character by double-clicking on the character you want in the Special Characters tool, available at the bottom of any Edit menu. You can customize the character sets that are shown, e.g., to add more phonetic alphabet symbols, by following the directions given here .