Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Hyphen-Mania

As a medical transcription editor and transcriptionist I run across thousands of hyphens a day...many of them misplaced or inappropriate.

The biggest problem seems to be hyphenated or compound adjectives. The simplest description I could find for hyphenated or compound adjectives is:

"A compound adjective is formed when two or more adjectives work together to modify the same noun. These terms should be hyphenated to avoid confusion or ambiguity."

I found this handy little hyphen quiz. It's not hard, but interesting. See how you do (I got 12/12).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I got 11/12. I missed the very first question. Thanks for sharing this quiz site. I usually feel confused when it comes to hyphens but this quiz made me realize I know a little more than I thought.

Angie Ledbetter said...

That was interesting! I missed one (#9), and as an editor, I know it's now the acceptable rule NOT to put a comma between two descriptives (is that a word? LOL) as the "correct answer" has below. If I were editing a prose submission for the Rose & Thorn Literary ezine, I'd take it out.

Correct Answer: A The delicious, gooey frosting melted before we could refrigerate the cake.

alana said...

Wow I suck.

I don't really use hyphens though, but it wouldn't hurt to do better. lol

Terri Tiffany said...

I have a book that explains it all but I am too lazy to always look so I guess! Not cool, I know.