John McIntyre, whom James Wolcott called "the Dave Brubeck of the art and craft of copy editing," writes on language, editing, journalism, and random topics. Identifying his errors relieves him of the burden of omniscience. Write to jemcintyre@gmail.com, befriend at Facebook, or follow at Twitter: @johnemcintyre. His original "You Don't Say" blog at The Baltimore Sun ran from 2005 to 2021, and posts on it can sometimes be found at baltimoresun.com through Google searches.
Unless you follow Chicago and it appears in a subject complement, in which case it's unhyphenated, as in "Jonathon is overly anal retentive." Personally, I think it's a silly rule, but there you have it.
Unless you follow Chicago and it appears in a subject complement, in which case it's unhyphenated, as in "Jonathon is overly anal retentive." Personally, I think it's a silly rule, but there you have it.
ReplyDeleteIt's a permanently hyphenated compound, per Merriam-Webster's 11th...
ReplyDeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteWhat are other permanently hyphenated compounds?
Chris:
ReplyDeletePreparation-H
Ex-Lax
Fleet-Enema
And my personal favorite, "happy-go-lucky."
ReplyDeleteAnd only we anal-retentive types care.
ReplyDelete