Editor’s note: June Casagrande’s column on language and usage ran in the Daily Pilot until 2005. We’re pleased to welcome her back. Her column will run Saturdays. If you’ve ever watched a man eating ...

The apparent problem is that AP refuses to set down “rules.” As the stylebook says, using hyphens “can be a matter of taste, judgment and style sense.” Judging by many of the Twitter reactions to the ...

People get hyped about hyphens. Hyphens are tricky creatures that can't be summed up in a few words. They are sometimes overused, other times underused. They follow a few rules then haphazardly ignore ...

Hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes are frequently tested punctuation marks in government exam descriptive writing papers. Hyphens connect words, en dashes show ranges or relationships, and em dashes ...

The hyphens and dashes used in English writing are often used inconsistently, regardless of whether the writer is a professional or not. Mister Punctual, a blog that posts articles about punctuation ...

When dealing with compound modifiers, heed this advice from The Associated Press Stylebook: "Do not use a hyphen between adverbs ending in '-ly' and adjectives they modify." For example, no hyphens ...

Hyphens are a pain. People use them so differently that it’s impossible for anyone to use them with complete confidence. As they say, no two editors hyphenate exactly alike, which is why I have seen ...

It's small. It's flat. It's black. And according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, its numbers are shrinking. Welcome to the world of the hyphen. Having been around since at least the birth of ...