I am proofreading an article and have come across: "to a focus on a fulfilled (upper)middle-class life". At first I was simply going to put a space between the closing parenthesis and the "middle" but am now second-guessing myself. My question is, in keeping the parentheses, would it be: "(upper) middle-class" or "(upper-)middle-class" or some other form?
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I suppose it depends on the publication you're writing for. Otherwise look at The Chicago Manual of Style or the Associated Press stylesheet. – Robusto Jun 23 '23 at 13:20
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It is a small styleguide for a small German publisher, they do not specify other than to use American English spelling and punctuation. But I am thinking that this is not a question of style, more of the rules of punctuation. – Phil Jun 23 '23 at 13:42
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Then look at the CMoS or AP stylesheet. – Robusto Jun 23 '23 at 13:46
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I will look elsewhere as well but am hoping to learn something here :) – Phil Jun 23 '23 at 13:52
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I'd say this answers your question, Phil: What would be the correct spelling/hyphenation for "upper mid-tier"?, which quote from Wikipedia 'The upper middle class in Britain broadly consists of people who were ... examples of upper-middle-class people ...'. Also {How} to hyphenate with compound premodifiers ... ... – Edwin Ashworth Jun 23 '23 at 14:19
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See also hardware-counter-based tools or hardware-counter-based tools?. // I'd say there are few precedents for << (upper-)middle-class NP >>. I'd be inclined to keep the hyphen to aid grouping – but then, how many people are going to know what established practice is? Probably, 15 people have chosen one of your options in the last 100 years, and 17 the other. – Edwin Ashworth Jun 23 '23 at 14:28