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I find that many apps highlight phrases like "high level", insisting an hyphenation. The highlighting is distracting. Based on this page and this page, the hyphenation is needed when referring to "high-level information" but not for "high level of information".

I didn't quite follow the logic, but tried to stress test the logic anyway. For example, "car lot" seems reasonable, as does "small car lot". As does "small car repair lot" and "damaged small car repair intake lot". I wouldn't hyphenate any of these. Is the logic for hyphenation actually sound? Can someone explain it in simpler terms and provide unequivocal examples?

user2153235
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  • Note the need for hyphens to distinguish a sweet shop-girl / a sweet-shop-girl and three hundred year-old trees / three hundred-year-old trees / three-hundred-year-old trees. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 14 '24 at 19:17
  • Thanks, Edwin. Would I be correctly summarizing that cited Q&A as there is no hard and fast rule, but it depends on which words you want to gel together more tightly than others, making the hyphenation rule ambiguous for a long series of words like "damaged small car repair intake lot"? I'm careful about drawing this conclusion because the pages cited in the question imply that there definitely is a rule that applies (even though I have a hard time extending the logic to more complex phrases). – user2153235 Mar 14 '24 at 19:37
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    Articles and prepositions can break up a long sequence of nouns. Rephrasing, "An intake lot for the repair of small cars." The 'damaged' can be omitted since that is implied by 'repair'. – Weather Vane Mar 14 '24 at 20:35
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    You seem to have made up the example starting from "small car lot". Is that a small lot for cars, or a lot for small cars? – Weather Vane Mar 14 '24 at 20:45
  • It's a contrived example. I realize that a sentence can be restructured to avoid the need for a long string of nouns acting as adjectives. I often do that, but this question is really about what hard (reliable) rule(s) apply (if any) in situations where one chooses not to do that. – user2153235 Mar 14 '24 at 20:46
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    In speech, the intonation can provide the intended meaning, and of course has no hyphens. But in writing the long string of nouns can be difficult to parse, or not look very fluent with so many hyphens. Structure the sentence with more care, or choose to make it awkward. We use a lot of articles and prepositions in English to link the parts of a sentence. – Weather Vane Mar 14 '24 at 20:49
  • @WeatherVane Reasoned-enough advice to form "An Answer." – Yosef Baskin Mar 14 '24 at 22:33
  • The overriding rule transcends grammaticality. Grice's maxim of manner (... avoid obscurity, ambiguity [and other writing that can be misconstrued by a proficient Anglophone]) should trump all else. Then 'avoid over-complexity'. So 'damaged small car repair intake lot' needs rephrasing, not judiciously punctuating. The tree examples need judicious punctuation. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 14 '24 at 23:22
  • See also Is it correct to hyphenate with compound premodifiers ? If so, where is the hyphen ... and Hyphenating compound adjectives with more than two parts. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 14 '24 at 23:23
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    @EdwinAshworth I think I've heard it expressed ironically as "eschew obfuscation" – Barmar Mar 14 '24 at 23:55
  • Thank you for all the responses. In summary, the ultimate answer is that there are very few ways to show the nested grouping of a many-modifier phrase. Basically, a short dash and long dash, and sometimes the use of dashes leads to grammatical errors. So the ambiguity is hard to avoid and is best addressed by restructuring the phrase. – user2153235 Mar 15 '24 at 12:29
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    The em-dash — and the en-dash – are different from the hyphen - (and have very different uses, in general). — , – //// -. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 15 '24 at 15:51

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