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How many hyphens should there be in this phrase?

Vietnam war veteran turned performing artist Joe Smith

RegDwigнt
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user38661
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    None. Please advance your own hypotheses and reasoning. This isn’t a quiz show or a guessing game. – tchrist Mar 03 '13 at 23:40
  • I already know my reasoning and wondered what other people thought without coloring their opinions. – user38661 Mar 03 '13 at 23:50
  • Then you should have said that. As it is, it is not a good question, and might get closed. – tchrist Mar 03 '13 at 23:53
  • http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/100818/when-to-use-a-hyphen-to-coin-a-new-word-and-when-to-omit-a-hypen – Blessed Geek Mar 03 '13 at 23:58
  • Unlike discussion groups, the format here is: please support your question with context (why you are asking, or the text that you are confused about), do your own research first and post the results of your research. – MetaEd Mar 04 '13 at 00:07
  • Thanks for clarifying the proper format for using this site. Much appreciated. Feel free to close my question. – user38661 Mar 04 '13 at 00:32
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    I would choose: Vietnam-war-veteran-turned-performing-artist Joe Smith. You want all of what comes before to modify Joe Smith, and the hyphens help the reader realize that without having to backtrack. – JLG Mar 04 '13 at 01:13
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    There should not be any hyphens because it needs to be rewritten to avoid a confusing and (to my mind) ugly expression. Unless of course this is a party trick rather than "real" writing. – Fortiter Mar 04 '13 at 01:35
  • @Fortiter: There is an intermediate register: the correct reporting of an informal utterance. Then, JLG's suggestion, un-Perryesque ( http://www.anneperry.co.uk/ ) as it is, is the answer. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 04 '13 at 08:57

1 Answers1

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Your phrase needs either 5 hyphens or a comma. The purpose of the hyphens is to create a single adjective, so that it becomes 'Vietnam-war-veteran-turned-performing-artist Joe Smith'. However, I find that is more elegant, though equally correct, to write about the 'Vietnam war veteran turned performing artist, Joe Smith'.

I'd suggest letting context guide your decision. At the beginning of a sentence, the hyphens make it immediately clear that phrase is a description, though in the case of more than a small handful of words, the hyphens garble the meaning instead of clarifying it.

jimbotherisenclown
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