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I have a question about hyphenating compound nouns when they function as object complements. For instance, should entertainment oriented be hyphenated in below sentence?

Much of the radio programming was entertainment oriented.

Likewise, well-acknowledged

This issue is well acknowledged.

KillingTime
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Mohamed Iliyas
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    'Well [-] acknowledged' is a compound adjective, and this has been answered before, several times, Mohamed. // Does this answer your question? "easy to use" versus "easy-to-use" There are others. Compound adjectives placed before the noun are usually hyphenated; if used predicatively, they're usually not. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 12 '23 at 18:50

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A common bit of style guidance is to hyphenate them when they are used attributively. Thus entertainment-oriented programming but programming that’s entertainment oriented.

PaulTanenbaum
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    I agree, but can you document the advice? Are there any exceptions? – DjinTonic Oct 12 '23 at 18:41
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    Please check for likely duplicate questions / answers before answering. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 12 '23 at 18:53
  • There's no reason not to hyphenate the predicative "entertainment-oriented". It's just as much a compound adjective there as it is when it's in attributive position. – BillJ Oct 14 '23 at 09:43
  • I agree, @BillJ, that it’s compound in either position. But such usage authorities as the Chicago Handbook of Style do make the distinction. The motivation is to avoid the greater risk of ambiguity in phrases like We observed a man-eating shark, which might describe an experience during a scuba dive, versus We observed a man eating shark, which would be recounting more often an evening at a seafood restaurant. This ambiguity is not an issue when the compound modifier is used predicatively: *The shark we observed was man eating.” – PaulTanenbaum Oct 14 '23 at 11:36
  • I don't see any potential ambiguity. For the meaning a man who was eating shark a hyphen is absent, not to avoid ambiguity, but because it is not grammatically required. Note that no hyphen means no compound. – BillJ Oct 14 '23 at 12:13
  • Yes, but for the other meaning, omitting the hyphen does create ambiguity in the attributive use, whereas there’s no such ambiguity in the predicative, and that’s why Chicago distinguishes between the two positions. Anyway, if you disagree, you’re free to take it up with them. All I have been doing is reporting “a common bit of style guidance.” – PaulTanenbaum Oct 14 '23 at 12:21