Should I refer to a tutorial as a how-to or a how to? Is there a grammatical rule for this?
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1When you're wondering whether something is a word, your first stop should be a dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/how-to shows that the hyphenated form can be used as both a noun and an adjective. – Marthaª Dec 15 '11 at 14:53
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A previous hyphen question has good answers and includes links to hyphenating how-to's. – James Waldby - jwpat7 Dec 15 '11 at 15:42
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How-to
That is how it is to be written, as you mean a certain thing (the way) defined by the phrase. Without a hyphen it would not refer to the specific thing but just be a phrase.
Between
"The how-to of it all is explained in this tutorial."
and
"This tutorial shows how to do it all."
There is a distinct difference.
Kris
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Another comparison sentence would be something like "The steps for building this model are explained in the how-to available on our website" - i.e. using how-to as a noun rather than an adjective. – Marthaª Dec 15 '11 at 14:51
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What if you use it as an adjective like "click here to watch my how-to video"? You still use the hyphen, right? – NoodleOfDeath Feb 15 '18 at 14:02
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