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What's the proper way to hyphenate the expression "right mouse click".

I'm writing documentation for some software I wrote.

"Please right mouse click on ...".

Vivian River
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    Style suggestion: drop the word "mouse." "Please right click on ..." It is assumed that if you are clicking you will use the mouse to do so. Also, you may find this discussion on hyphenation interesting. – Lumberjack Oct 11 '13 at 20:11
  • FWIW, right-click is much more common than right click. http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=right-click%2C+right+click&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share= – Merk Oct 11 '13 at 20:23
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    I once read a story in a computer magazine about an irate user who wrote the word "click" on a monitor with a marker after a support person told her to right-click on sometime. – Vivian River Oct 11 '13 at 20:25
  • Yes: but you are writing documentation which people will read. There is no ambiguity between right click and write click. – Andrew Leach Oct 11 '13 at 20:32
  • That was supposed to be funny :-p – Vivian River Oct 11 '13 at 20:39
  • You should not use right-click, because it is wrong for left-handers. You should use index-click and ring-(finger-)click. – tchrist Oct 11 '13 at 21:12
  • @AndrewLeach Sure there is, since I always use my index finger — on my left hand. – tchrist Oct 11 '13 at 21:14
  • @tchrist I as a right handed person would not understand what you meant by that. Also, I tend to right-click with my middle not ring finger. The standard terms are left-click and right-click, since the 10% of the population that is left handed is also associated with a higher creativity and imagination (some say intelligence) I am sure they'll be able to figure it out so why confuse us right-handed plebes needlessly? – terdon Oct 12 '13 at 16:43
  • Then let it be a learning experience for them. Sometimes you have to aim for the 10%: nothing great was ever achieved by aiming low. – tchrist Oct 13 '13 at 03:48

1 Answers1

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The standard phrasing is right-click without the word mouse. Other click based phrases:

  • Single click
  • Double click
  • Right-click
  • Left-click
  • Middle-click
  • Ctrl-click

And so on. Whether to use a hyphen or not is somewhat personal preference and there isn't a strictly correct way to use it. If you are writing documentation or for a periodical I recommend asking your superior for the relevant style guide.

MrHen
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  • Doesn’t work for us left-handers. Need index-click not right-click, etc. – tchrist Oct 11 '13 at 21:13
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    @tchrist - With all those adjustments us southpaws need to make in a right-handed world, do you really have that much trouble with this one? Moreover, index-click won't work if my mouse is configured in the traditional way, but I happen to be moving it with my left hand. In that case, it's still a right-click. I appreciate your point, though. – J.R. Oct 11 '13 at 21:20