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Is the correct usage of the non-taxable or nontaxable? I'm not sure what the correct use is. I want to say that it is with the hyphen however it ha become a debate that this could be incorrect.

tchrist
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Amanda Brown
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  • Do have some reason to think that one of those is “correct usage” and one of those is “not correct usage”? – tchrist Aug 01 '18 at 15:21
  • @tchrist I guess, there is a correct way to use them. Check this link. – Ubi.B Aug 01 '18 at 15:44
  • Related: Is the use of a hyphen between “non” and an adjective strictly necessary? – herisson Aug 01 '18 at 16:04
  • "Non" is one of a very few prefixes that expresses negation. "Non-taxable" is a single word, a compound adjective, so the hyphen is required. It is normal to express it as "non-taxable". – BillJ Aug 01 '18 at 16:05
  • @Looper No, there is not. There are just varying expectations by different publishing houses. – tchrist Aug 01 '18 at 16:19
  • @BillJ: I don't understand what you mean by "the hyphen is required". It's clear that people use the connected form "nontaxable". So perhaps you are saying that it's incorrect to use the spaced form "non taxable"? But I don't see how that follows from the theoretical argument that you give, because plenty of English compounds seem to be written with spaces: we write things like "the White House" (stress on "White") or "color scheme" (stress on "color") with spaces, and I don't know why the rules would be different for compound nouns and compound adjectives. – herisson Aug 01 '18 at 16:22
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    @sumelic If there's a space, it's not a compound word but a syntactic construction, as "colour scheme" is. Compare "blackbird" (compound noun) vs "black bird" (syntactic construction). – BillJ Aug 01 '18 at 16:29
  • @tchrist I don't see your comment or remark on that question or under the top answer. That question should also be put on hold, right? Or your argument is based on some research papers on cuticle suppression? – Ubi.B Aug 01 '18 at 17:00
  • @BillJ: How can you be so sure that the clear distinction in spelling corresponds a clear distinction between "syntactic constructions" and compound words? To me, "ice cream" feels like a compound word. – herisson Aug 01 '18 at 17:34
  • @sumelic "Ice-cream" is a single word, a compound noun. One test is that there cannot be coordination in the modifier, i.e. it can only be modified as a whole; so we get "crushed ice-cream", but not *"[two ice-and-four custard-]creams" – BillJ Aug 02 '18 at 09:06
  • @BillJ: My point was that even if you spell it "ice-cream", many people spell it "ice cream", with a space and no hyphen. I don't think your rule "If there's a space, it's not a compound word but a syntactic construction" actually works in practice. – herisson Aug 02 '18 at 09:32
  • @sumelic So you have access to CGEL? – BillJ Aug 02 '18 at 10:15
  • @BillJ: No, not at the moment. What does it say about the spelling of compound words? – herisson Aug 02 '18 at 10:19

1 Answers1

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The US Government uses nontaxable on their website.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, The Free Dictionary, and other dictionaries, also use nontaxable.

Therefore, I would recommend using nontaxable, without the hyphen.

There might be other dictionaries out there that include the hyphen however. If you find a notable dictionary that does this and get points off on a paper for using a hyphen, be sure to show the professor. I might add that the use of a hyphen in many words, as you pointed out, is widely debated.

For example, many people omit the hyphen unless a hyphen would separate doubling a letter (non-native vs nonnative, pre-exist vs preexist) Chicago Manual of Style.

Ubi.B
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jmrpink
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  • But you would use non-taxable is if you are in a country whose regional dictionaries do not include it as a closed-form word. Notably, Oxford doesn't show nontaxable as a word. Therefore, if you are in the UK, you would likely spell it non-taxable. – Jason Bassford Aug 01 '18 at 16:30