Grammar question on hyphen use: "ever so sexy" or "ever-so-sexy"

[manyeyedhydra]

Hmm, which of these is correct:

The ritual goes wrong and Phil finds himself in the clutches of a harem of deadly but ever so sexy daemons

or

The ritual goes wrong and Phil finds himself in the clutches of a harem of deadly but ever-so-sexy daemons

I'm guessing there's no need for a comma after "deadly", but I'm not 100% on that.

Can anyone help, thanks.

 

[PennLady]

I'd go with the hyphens, since the whole phrase is an adjective for the daemons.

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Thanks PL.

 

[sr71plt]

Yes, hyphenated in that position. Not hyphenated if it came behind the word it modified: "the harem daemons were ever so sexy."

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

I agree with PennLady. Of course the hyphens would not be needed in a construction like "the daemons were deadly but ever so sexy".

 

[sr71plt]

Do I hear an echoechoecho in here?

 

[manyeyedhydra]

Echoes are good. It means there's one obvious right answer

 

[CarlusMagnus]

Do I hear an echoechoecho in here?

Merely an ever-so-correct echo.

 

[palisa]

"So, what's the difference between whether it came before or after the word it modifies?"

It's in your link also...check the "Notes, Variations and Applications" section.

The hyphen in compound modifiers is used more to avoid confusion than to join words together. There are indeed some cases in which authorities (like yours and the NYTimes style manual) call for hyphens even after the noun being modified. Some of these are because there is an implicit, or understood, noun after the adjectival phrase -- "The boy acts like a typical twelve-year-old (boy)" is from your source. The NYT style book also says some compound modifiers, typically those beginning with nouns, always keep the hyphen: health-conscious; tax-free; family-oriented; awe-inspiring.

Here's a short quote from the NYT on before vs. after. (The whole section on hyphens is over a page long.)

"The special case of compound modifiers that precede nouns is demonstrated [my note: not defined by -- illustrated by] in the entries on ILL (-) and "WELL (-). An example: 'He wore a well-tailored gray suit.' But omit the hyphen when the words follow the noun they modify: 'The suit was well tailored.'"

For the Chicago Manual of Style take on all this, sections 5.91 and 7.77-85 in the 16th edition.

While I sort of agree with your contention that the hyphen keeps things together, its more important function is to prevent confusion. That may sound the same, I guess, but put the idea in the hands of grammarians and they go off in a different direction.

 

[palisa]

This topic has been stuck in my head the past couple of days, like a tune that you can't stop humming.

I can't come up with many spot-on examples of what I meant by "avoiding confusion." One would be "small-business owner" rather than "small business owner."

Or take "much-needed clothing": with a hyphen if the clothing was desperately sought; without the hyphen if there's a large amount of needed clothing. (Much needed clothing never finds its way to the poor.)

But CMS says it's almost never wrong to hyphenate a compound adjective before the noun. I guess that's right; careful reading will uncover the few cases when the hyphen changes the meaning to an unwanted one. But newspapers (NYT, AP style guides) tend to be stricter, because they prefer uniformity to freedom of expression.

Your original example got me thinking as well. While "ever-so-sexy" is hyphenated in front of "daemons," what about:

"The ritual goes wrong and Phil finds himself in the clutches of a harem of deadly but oh so sexy daemons."

Seems clear to me that you don't need the hyphens, and if somebody challenged me, I'd cite an imaginary rule about not hyphenating interjections. (I doubt that even the most pettifogging authority has addressed the point, but who knows?) You could argue that "oh" isn't really an interjection here, it's an intensifying adverb. CMS implies that interjections should be set off by some sort of punctuation, but to me that sentence looks awkward if the "oh" is surrounded by commas or followed by an exclamation point.

The closest thing I could find to an authoritative usage in a cursory Google search was the phrase "our oh so beautiful flag" from the Chicago Trib. No commas, no hyphens.

Finally, on another point in the original post, I agree that you shouldn't use a comma after deadly. If you do, you would either have to use another comma after "sexy" to set off the non-restrictive phrase; or you would have to drop the "but" so that you have two adjectives (one a single word, one a phrase) modifying "daemons" with equal weight:

"The ritual goes wrong and Phil finds himself in the clutches of a harem of deadly, ever-so-sexy daemons."

I don't know if it's funny or sad or something else that this kind of stuff is so interesting to me. I need to get out more.

 

[olivias]

Your original example got me thinking as well. While "ever-so-sexy" is hyphenated in front of "daemons," what about:

"The ritual goes wrong and Phil finds himself in the clutches of a harem of deadly but oh so sexy daemons."

Seems clear to me that you don't need the hyphens, and if somebody challenged me, I'd cite an imaginary rule about not hyphenating interjections.

I'd still hyphenate this (it's still directly in front of the noun it modifies), and if the author complained, per every publisher guidelines I had, it would remain hyphenated. The style of a book a publisher pays for is the publisher's, not the author's (or the author can take the book elsewhere). The publisher might tolerate an author quirk or two, but that's the publisher's call and usually isn't done for something as basic as this. To the publisher, it's the reader/buyer's understanding that is more important than the author's nonstandard quirks.

Finally, on another point in the original post, I agree that you shouldn't use a comma after deadly. If you do, you would either have to use another comma after "sexy" to set off the non-restrictive phrase; or you would have to drop the "but" so that you have two adjectives (one a single word, one a phrase) modifying "daemons" with equal weight:

I would invoke the hyphens here and a comma after deadly and sexy would be preferred, but if the author didn't use them I would let that go through. Not a big deal.

 

[palisa]

Thanks, Olivias. I would be interested in a citation of the publisher guidelines you're referring to. Never too late to learn something new.

 

[sr71plt]

The difference between these two is not a grammar issue. It's an issue of what is meant. Clothing that is much needed ("much-needed clothing") means something different than a large amount of clothing that is needed (much needed clothing). The use/non use of the hyphen is controlled by what the term means. It's as simple as that in this case.

However, when the term means the same thing but the combined adjective appears in different parts of the sentence, you have different uses of the hyphen:

Much-needed clothing was sent to Timbuktu.

The clothing that was sent to Timbuktu was much needed.

("adverb not ending in ly + participle or adjective" -- "Hyphenated before but not after a noun" Chicago Manual of Style 16, 7.85, page 377)

This responds to palisa's last question too. It's CMS style, which nearly every U.S. publisher uses for humanities editing. So the specific publishers that use this don't really need to be named--almost all of them use it.

 

[LordMhoram]

...I'm guessing there's no need for a comma after "deadly", but I'm not 100% on that.

Can anyone help, thanks.

The ritual goes wrong and Phil finds himself in the clutches of a harem of deadly but ever-so-sexy daemons

Since I didn't see anyone answer this... No, you should not have a comma after 'deadly' in your description of the demons.

However, in your actual question which I quoted at the top, the comma is required (as you have done). 'But' is a coordinating conjunction joining two, complete thoughts in this instance, which differs from your story excerpt.

 

[palisa]

The difference between these two is not a grammar issue. It's an issue of what is meant. Clothing that is much needed ("much-needed clothing") means something different than a large amount of clothing that is needed (much needed clothing). The use/non use of the hyphen is controlled by what the term means. It's as simple as that in this case.

However, when the term means the same thing but the combined adjective appears in different parts of the sentence, you have different uses of the hyphen:

Much-needed clothing was sent to Timbuktu.

The clothing that was sent to Timbuktu was much needed.

("adverb not ending in ly + participle or adjective" -- "Hyphenated before but not after a noun" Chicago Manual of Style 16, 7.85, page 377)

This responds to palisa's last question too. It's CMS style, which nearly every U.S. publisher uses for humanities editing. So the specific publishers that use this don't really need to be named--almost all of them use it.

Most uses of a hyphen in a phrase before a noun are to avoid confusion or ambiguity, as CMS and other authorities stress. That's the point I was making earlier. And even CMS says hyphens in compound modifiers before a noun (with exceptions for proper nouns and "-ly" adverbs) are "never incorrect," leaving some wiggle room.

I don't think the second point is quite that black and white. (No hyphens. ) The next sentence after the one you quoted in 7.85 makes an exception ("unless ambiguity threatens") for compounds with words like "more" or "least." And even more interesting is the next sentence, which I didn't think of earlier but is perhaps germane to this discussion: "When the adverb rather than the compound as a whole is modified by another adverb, the entire expression is open."

So going back to Mal's original sentence, or to the question of "oh so sexy," what does "ever" modify? Very plausibly, it's "so" and not "so sexy." Adverb modifies another adverb, and the hyphens disappear. You would have to read "ever" in the sense of "always," to make it modify the compound as a whole; here, it seems to be used as an intensifier. So perhaps, at least in Chicago style, we're all wrong about whether the hyphens are needed?

Finally, SR, I think the Modern Language Association and to a less extent the APA would challenge your contention that CMS has a lock on publishers of works in the humanities.

 

[sr71plt]

Finally, SR, I think the Modern Language Association and to a less extent the APA would challenge your contention that CMS has a lock on publishers of works in the humanities.

In the U.S. market, the MLA is for literary criticism and the APA is for scientific works. The CMA is for the humanities, which includes fiction (and most nonfiction, as well). The publishing industry has no trouble deciding what authority is for what even if you and some others do have this trouble. I have no idea why folks are so bullheaded about this--but it doesn't really matter, as the publishing industry knows what it's going to do--and, ultimately, it doesn't matter much, if at all, what folks choose to do on a porn story site.

 

[snoopercharmbrights]

... Finally, SR, I think the Modern Language Association and to a less extent the APA would challenge your contention that CMS has a lock on publishers of works in the humanities.

Really? They would dare to challenge the statements of the fount of all knowledge on all matters of language and editing?

 

[sr71plt]

Thus spake the eternally pissed off one-time self-appointed fount of all wisdom on this forum.

Sort of misses the point (but it's certainly amusing in its ever-suffering bile). I don't claim to be the authority on anything--I bow to what the publishing industry has adopted as its authorities in the separate realms of genre--and in the separate markets. (This was Snooper's "sin." He still thinks the only English-or publishing market--that exists is in England.)