Recently, I read a writing tipon hyphenation. It’s well worth reading, so please check it out.
One point, the author failed to clearly make was that a hyphen is required when the unhyphenated word can be misread. For instance, “co-pilot” when not hyphenated is “cop ilot.” Of course, “ilot” is ridiculous, but that’s the point—the hyphen is there to guide the reader to not make a mistake.
The funniest mistake that I’ve come across is “coworker.” This is supposed to be “co-worker,” but it can be read as “cow orker,” which immediately makes me want to ask: “What’s a cow orker?” Is this something from Middle Earth?
Well, a little writing humor for this post. I suppose that some may say, “very little humor.” 🙂
I’m an author living in northern Virginia with a wife and a cat. In the late ’80s, I worked on the International Space Station project. I recently retired from managing a group of software engineers to focus on writing science fiction and speculative fiction. Learn more.