Hyphens, Schmyphens

I've written about them before and doubtless will again. For they are troublesome little creatures for many writers.

I'm working on a manuscript whose author either missed the grammar lessons on punctuation marks or (as another author previously mentioned here) writes as if he's being paid by the hyphen; or both.

You know the weird dynamic that can occur when the more you look at a certain (correct) word, the more it looks wrong? Or when a repeated error begins to look correct? Such is the case with the profusion of unnecessary hyphens in this book. By unnecessary, I mean they appear in phrases that could be compound modifiers if followed by a noun. But they stand on their own in the book—in the company of their errant hyphens—and they appear so often that I've questioned my own knowledge. Some examples:

• guns-in-schools


• out-of-step


• computer-accessible


• after-the-fact


• metal-detector


• fellow-travelers


• around-the-bend


• true-believer


• less-than-comfortable


• face-to-face

I mentioned this to a colleague. He articulated the issue perfectly: "I recently worked on a book that was so full of hyphens I started to doubt my ability to reason out the phrases."