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I am currently editing a scientific text in which the term "machine learning" (ML) appears several times with a hyphen (i.e., "machine-learning") and several times without. Are there any significant differences between these forms? As far as I understand, ML can either (1) represent a field of research or (2) a descriptor of methods/algorithms. Examples:

(1) Machine learning is a scientific field that studies the theoretical and practical aspects of programs that feature intelligent behavior.

or

(2) We experimented with several machine-learning methods.

At first, I thought that this difference in meaning between (1) and (2) can explain hyphenation. However, the selection of hyphenation in the text I am editing seems to be completely random and unrelated to the above. Thus, should I stick to one form (i.e., with or without hyphen, and which to choose?) for consistency or is there a related rule of grammar that I can follow?

tchrist
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Enk9456
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    As in all noun compounds, a lot of ambiguity is possible. Ask the author if they mean different things, or just ask them to read the phrases out loud and see if you think they're different. – John Lawler Sep 24 '22 at 20:59
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    Keep in mind that a lot of people involved in machine learning these days are not native English speakers. Is the text you're reviewing written by a sole author, or are there multiple authors? in the latter case, it might just be that one of the authors uses the hyphen and even though the other doesn't, they mean the exact same thing. – user4052054 Sep 25 '22 at 15:57
  • IME, most of the confusion occurs when people don't use hyphens; if they're used correctly, there's rarely any ambiguity. – gidds Sep 25 '22 at 18:22

1 Answers1

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The hyphen shows you mean
{machne learning} methods, that is: methods for machine learning,
and not machine {learning methods}, that is, learning methods for machines.

GEdgar
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    Lynne Truss has a wonderful example showing this particular usage of hyphens: a "pickled-herring merchant" is a merchant who sells pickled herring, and would be quite offended to be described as a "pickled herring merchant", which would mean he himself is pickled (= drunk, when used of a person). This is from her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, which might be the only genuinely funny book about punctuation I've encountered. – David Loeffler Sep 25 '22 at 07:08