Hawking Hyphens in Compound Modifiers
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Hawking Hyphens in Compound Modifiers Joan Ames Magat * Joseph Kimble once remarked that, for legal writers, hyphenating compound modifiers (“phrasal adjectives”) that precede the noun they modify “is . a hard sell.” 1 How right he was. I’ve been trying to hawk that hyphen for years. Still, convinced as I am that the practice is “never incorrect” 2 and driven by the certainty that such hyphens inevitably clarify 3—which, for legal writing in particular, is paramount—I make the pitch once again here in the hopes of making a few more sales. Sure, some compound nouns functioning as modifiers are so familiar they might slip by unhyphenated: high school student, business judgment rule, sales tax increases, criminal defense lawyer. Yet even a dictionary of general use— Webster’s here—recognizes the shift of noun to adjective with a hyphen: “common law n.” is listed as “common-law . adj .,” 4 as is “common-law marriage.” 5 Hyphenated. And Black’s Law Dictionary , which defines legal terms of art, does the same. 6 Business record (n.) is listed adjectivally as “business-records exception”; 7 dispute resolution (n.), as “dispute-resolution procedure.” 8 Hyphenated. The “rule,” such as it is, is easy enough to apply consistently; one can craft exceptions for visually obvious compounds—phrases in italics or quotes or that are proper nouns, for example. Yet the facility of the rule’s application evidently does nothing to recommend its consistent use. A handful of legal authors whose work I have edited have balked at * Joan Ames Magat teaches writing at Duke Law School. 3 Kimble , supra n. 1, at 156. She is a coeditor of this journal and associate editor of 4 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 250 (11th ed. another. She is also author of The Lawyer’s Editing 2008). Manual (Carolina Press). She is indebted to Sara Benson and Sara Gordon, who edited this piece, and no less so to 5 Id . at 251. all the editors who help make this journal reliable and 6 Black’s Law Dictionary 294 (Bryan A. Garner ed., 8th readable (and reliably readable). ed. 2004). 1 Joseph Kimble, Lifting the Fog of Legalese 157 (2006). 7 Id . at 212. 2 The Chicago Manual of Style 373 (16 th ed. 2010). 8 Id. at 505. Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2517938 154 LEGAL COMMUNICATION & RHETORIC: JALWD / VOLUME 11 / 2014 hyphenation edits, citing alternate practices of the New York Times , the Atlantic magazine, law journals, and so forth, for those who publish respectable pieces and don’t bother to follow such a rule. But the punc - tuation habits of law-journal articles aren’t persuasive: they simply reflect the practices of generations of legal authors and student law-review editors who’ve never given the matter much, if any, thought. As for the Atlantic and the Times , those legal authors are mistaken, at least regarding whether either periodical follows a consistent rule one way or the other. 9 A legal-writing colleague has similarly resisted a consistent practice, opining that the majority of style guides recommend the hyphen only when its absence would invite ambiguity. This would be what The Economist Style Guide calls the “subjective view”—i.e., dropping the hyphen “when . there is no risk of ambiguity or hesitation in understanding on the part of the reader.” 10 In contrast to this practice of “American English,” “British English usually uses the hyphen in compound adjectives . that precede the noun, which promotes consistency.”) 11 The Economist Guide appears to be right in recognizing the “subjective view” as the American practice, at least as recommended by a handful of respectable American style guides. 12 The MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing is one of these: “Use hyphens in . compound adjectives before nouns to prevent misreading. Do not use hyphens in familiar unhyphenated compound terms such as social security , high school , and liberal arts , when they appear before nouns as 9 A random perusal of just a couple of front-page articles in the Times unearthed a host of hyphenated compound modifiers, among them “violence-racked border town,” “drug-gang violence,” “military-led crackdown,” “a California-based nonprofit organization,” “low-income areas,” “upper-middle-class township,” “a waste-to-energy plant,” “reduced-price lunches,” and “a fast-paced version.” Marc Lacey & Ginger Thompson, Drug Slayings in Mexico Rock U.S. Consulate , N.Y. Times A1 (Mar. 15, 2010); Winnie Hu, Forget Goofing Around: Recess Has a New Boss , N.Y. Times A1 (Mar. 15, 2010). But see the Times ’ “rule” for hyphenating compounds in the Appendix, which would deem most of these hyphens unnecessary. An equally serendipitous search of one issue of the Atlantic brought up “high-school diploma,” “second-class citizens,” “centuries-old preference,” “26-year-old granddaughter,” “a take-no-prisoners personality,” “elementary-school reunion,” “sex- change operation,” “war-torn states,” “more-nurturing and more-flexible behavior,” “worst-hit industries,” “upper-class women,” “the real-estate crisis,” “child-support payments,” “social-welfare program,” “working-class America,” “a hard-science background,” “gender-neutral flex time .” Hanna Rosin, The End of Men , The Atlantic (July/Aug. 2010) (available at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135). To be fair, though, the author’s practice in this article was inconsistent: “commercial driver’s permit” and “home health assistance” went hyphenless. Could it be that we legal readers simply don’t see the hyphens when they’re there (nor miss them when they’re not), being as familiar as brothers with “business judgment rule” or “home mortgage deduction”? As for the absence of hyphenated compound modifiers in law journals, well, legal writers are not in the habit of using them and legal-writing professors are not in the habit of teaching them to would-be law-review editors and authors. This perpetuates their nonuse. Still, some legal-writing texts advise otherwise. See infra App. 10 The Economist Style Guide 145 (2005). 11 Id . A more-recent edition does away with national distinctions and seems to recommend the subjective approach: “[I]f the adverb is one of two words together being used adjectivally, a hyphen may be needed[;] [t]he hyphen is especially likely to be needed if the adverb is short and common . Less common adverbs, including all those that end in –ly, are less likely to need hyphens.” The Economist Style Guide 78 (2012) (emphasis added). 12 See infra App . HAWKING HYPHENS IN COMPOUND MODIFIERS 155 modifiers.” 13 The New York Times Manual on Style and Usage is another: “Do not use hyphens in compound modifiers when the meaning is clear without them.” 14 The Manual of Style published by the U.S. Government Printing Office likewise advises, when “meaning is clear and readability is not aided, it is not necessary to use a hyphen to form a temporary or made compound.” 15 “[N]ot necessary,” though, does not mean “pointless.” Not necessary, perhaps—but helpful. Unlike an audience who relishes the rhythms of punctuation (or those of its absence) enabled by liberal poetic license (think Faulkner; think Joyce), anyone writing for a legal audience must first be clear. Clarity is critical: time, for the legal reader, is at a premium. Legal writing should never cause the reader to puzzle and pause over skids punctuation can grease. Even if the pause is occasion for a chuckle (a criminal defense attorney, a lame duck president, a high school student), it is also occasion for distraction from the message, which is far from what the legal writer wants. Apart from habit, I can think of a number of reasons why hyphenating compound modifiers has not caught on for anyone other than the rare law-review editor, punctuation nerds, or plain-English mavens. First, reading fluency. Resisters insist that unexpected hyphens distract. But hyphens are not scare quotes; they are not exclamation marks; they are not semicolons or em dashes used to excess. Punctuation used for emphatic effect or overused in the guise of style is bound to distract: the former is intended to startle or slow the reader down and so make her dwell on a thought or a turn of phrase; the latter puts a drag on the read simply in being noticed, over and over again. The hyphen’s role (and that of well-placed commas, for example) is, by contrast, to smooth the way, to let the reader slip through a multiply modified noun and on to its verb. If hyphens distract, they do so in the manner of footnote numbers. When we’re unused to seeing them, we notice them. That¾eventually¾we will notice them less and internalize their import more does little to sway the diehards. Still, if used consistently in the short term, in the long term, hyphens in compounds will distract no more than the hyphen at a line break: not at all. 13 MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing 94 (3d ed. 2008). 14 The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage 163 (Allan M. Siegal & William G. Connolly eds. 1999). 15 U.S. Government Printing Office , Style Manual 99 (2008) ( available at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-STYLE - MANUAL-2008/pdf/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008.pdf). The Manual ’s examples of the latter include compounds familiar to readers of legal documents: “child welfare plan,” “civil rights case,” “interstate commerce law,” “income tax form,” real estate tax.” Id . 156 LEGAL COMMUNICATION & RHETORIC: JALWD / VOLUME 11 / 2014 A second reason for hyphen resistance is that it’s sometimes hard to tell what’s noun and what’s modifier.