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Hyphenating the Age of Characters

8/25/2020

1 Comment

 
Have you ever found yourself writing or revising your manuscript and confused about the rule for using a hyphen? Even though the confusion won’t stop you from writing, it can frustrate an author when they’re trying to polish their manuscript.
​
For today’s post, I’m strictly focusing on hyphenating ages. The answer to hyphenate or not to hyphenate is always the same when using the CMOS style guide, which is the same guide used for books published in the US. 
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​3 Ways Ages Are Used in a Sentence

There are three typical ways that age (the adjective) is used to describe someone or something in a sentence. What are these? 
  1. Adjective form before a noun
  2. Adjective form after a noun
  3. Noun form
These three forms are relatively simple to understand. All you need to do is look at the sentence that mentions the age and take notice if the age (the adjective) is placed before or after the noun (typically the character) it’s describing. I’ll provide a few examples below.

​Examples of Sentences

  1. Adjective form before the noun: The sixty-year-old lady loves sugar cookies.
  2. Adjective form after the noun: Jennifer is sixty years old and loves sugar cookies.
  3. Noun form: The sixty-year-old loves sugar cookies.
If you’re wondering whether or not I love sugar cookies, I do. I also love many other forms of sweets, too, unless they’re expired and are sixty years old. My favorite are minute-old cookies that are still hot and gooey.

For a detailed list of CMOS rules regarding ages and more, check out the site: Editing and Indexing. I love that site because it also clearly states the differences between AP and CMOS style.

I hope these examples have helped you figure out whether or not to use hyphens when inserting the age of a noun (a person, place, or thing) within a sentence. When in doubt, ask an editor. You can always send me a quick email if you have a question about editing.
If you found this post helpful, please consider sharing it on social media. To hire me as your editor or ask a question, email me. I also offer free sample edits for the first 500 words. ​Have fun writing!
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Author

Dawn Husted progressed into offering her editing services to clients in 2016, eventually opening Yaupon Berry Press LLC. She's constantly learning new ways of helping clients stay relevant in today’s market, whether by using an SEO strategy targeting high-trafficked keywords or simply editing their content. ​Dawn lives in central Texas with her husband, two energetic kids and an adorable golden retriever.

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1 Comment
Dawn Husted
8/28/2020 02:07:15 pm

After this blog post went live, I received an email with a question regarding the use of a hyphen. Here are the questions and answers to the question.

QUESTIONS
After reading your post on hyphens, I had a couple of questions. I also ran this through Grammarly, but I wanted to check to make sure these two examples are correct - part of my query.


a) ... geared for ten to twelve-year-olds.

b) A group of sixth-graders who’ve ...

ANSWERS
I love your question, because something that seems so simple at first actually began a discussion in the editor group I'm a part of online. Since you use the phrase: ten to twelve-year-olds, the hyphens are different.

a) ... geared for ten-to-twelve-year-olds. (this answer lies in the Chicago Manual of Style section 7.89)

*If you had created a sentence with the conjunction "and" instead of the preposition "to," the answer would've been different: for ten- and twelve-year-olds. The particular phrase would get a "space" after the first hyphen.


b) a group of sixth graders who've ... (In this particular example, no hyphen is needed).

*I almost wanted to hyphenate this one, and I know Grammarly says to, but my editor group advises against it, so I had to rethink my answer. Since "sixth" is the adjective and "grader" is a noun, then there's no need for a hyphen. Also, if you look up the word "grader" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it gives an example of "fifth grader" without the hyphen. This is the dictionary that editors use for books published in the US.

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