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What is right?

1) "well know" or "well-know"

2) "non central" or "non-central"

There some general rule?

zacarias
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2 Answers2

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The rule is that you hyphenate double-adjectives only if they come before the noun they modify. For examples:

Brad Pitt is a well-known actor.

Brad Pitt is well known.

"Non-" works differently because it is a prefix, not a stand-alone word (as opposed to being stand alone [see the hyphen-usage difference (as opposed to the difference in hyphen usage)]).

LaBarrister
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  • Sorry, but well is not an adjective there, it's an adverb. Generally speaking, adverbs are exempt from the hyphenation rule. – Robusto Jan 16 '15 at 17:50
  • @Robusto But 'well-known' forms a composite adjective. They can include words which are by themselves of an entirely different part of speech. Some composite adjectives, for example, are made up of entirely of nouns e.g. a car-headlamp converter. – WS2 Jan 16 '15 at 18:30
  • @WS2: I take your point, but the fact is that we only write "well-known" because of an impulse to hypercorrect. You wouldn't type "really-well-known", even though that also forms a composite adjective. – Robusto Jan 16 '15 at 19:37
  • @Robusto a rule followed by many is to hyphenate with adverbs that don't end with -ly, which would produce both "really well-known" without counting as hypercorrection. – Jon Hanna Jan 16 '15 at 21:30
  • @Robusto, does the fact that certain words, i.e., well and known, collocate so frequently play a role in determining whether or not they become hyphenated? –  Jan 17 '15 at 06:51
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Hyphenation of compounds is something that different style-guides differ on immensely; different people use different variants of the rules while all being correct.

Both of your cases here are adjectival compounds (assuming you meant "known" rather than "know"), but they differ in how they form them.

"Well known" or "well-known" is a combination of an adverb and an adjective. Different policies people might apply here are:

  1. Hyphenate unless the adverb ends with -ly: Hence "well-known".

  2. Don't hyphenate unless the adverb has an adjective sense (true of well) and could potentially be intended as applied to the noun: Hence depends on what we are saying is well-known.

  3. Don't hyphenate unless the adverb has an adjective sense, but then always hyphenate: Hence well-known.

Generally also, hyphenation will only happen if you are using it before the noun, so someone who would write "a well-known writer" would say "the writer is well known". But if a phrase has its own hyphenated entry in a dictionary someone is using they might hyphenate even after the noun.

In the case of non-central you have a prefix non- that does not operate on its own. Here the choice is not between hyphenating and leaving it unhyphenated, but between hyphenating and closing; "non-central" vs. "noncentral".

There is even more variance found here than in the previous case. The simplest rule to follow is just to see if the compound has its own entry in the dictionary you are using, and to use it as the dictionary does if it does, and hyphenate otherwise. Another rule some people follow is to close it (noncentral) unless the result is confusing or results in producing what is already a word with a different sense.

Jon Hanna
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