Several Grammar-Related Issues

I was recently approached by customers and readers with queries about two issues that can be quite confusing: which words do you capitalize in titles and headings, and when do you use a hyphen to join words. In English things that you would expect to be straightforward and elementary can be rather frustrating and may seem totally incomprehensible, even to native speakers. I have tried to provide a bit of logic to these two issues in the hope that this will help you improve your writing.

HOW TO CAPITALIZE TITLES AND HEADINGS

A short while ago, I was challenged by the CEO of a company in regard to grammatical structures that I had used in a product description. Among other things, he didn’t like the way I capitalized titles in the document. When he was in secondary school his English teacher taught him to capitalize all proper nouns in a title. There is a lot more to it than that.

A title or header in a document is meant to be an eye-catcher and it should be set off from the body of the text. One of the ways to do this is by capitalizing words according to their parts of speech. Capitalize all nouns, pronouns (you, he she, it), verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Put all articles (a, an, the), prepositions (to, at, in, with), coordinating conjunctions, and subordinating conjunctions in lower case. Since most people do not have a clue what coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions do, I have provided lists below.

This whole business is not nearly as complicated as it sounds and this method is certainly not my invention. The Chicago Manual of Style follows this rule while the Associated Press does the same but capitalizes prepositions and conjunctions if they are four or more letters long (after, among, between). I personally disagree with that rule.

One of my contacts wrote me that she was taught to capitalize longer words while using lowercase for shorter words. The length of a word is certainly no indication of its importance. Do not follow this rule.

No matter which convention you prefer to follow (except for the last example), you need to be consistent. Pick one and stick with it.

One further point, if the article (a, an, the) is part of the name – such as The New York Times – then, of course, it is capitalized.

Coordinating Conjunctions: and, but, for, nor, or, so, and yet.

Subordinating Conjunctions: after, although, as, because, before, even if, even though, if, in order that, once, provided that, rather than, since, so that, than, that, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, whereas, wherever, whether, while, why.

For the record, coordinating conjunctions connect words, phrases, and clauses and while subordinating conjunctions provide transition between two ideas in the sentence. This transition will indicate a time, place, or cause-and-effect relationship. Put together a few sentences using some of these words and the principle will become quite clear to you.

WHEN TO HYPHENATE

Several people have written to me about my supposed “overuse” of hyphens. Hyphens are possibly the most misused, and inconsistently applied, punctuation marks in the English language. This little fellow is often critical in ensuring that your readers do not misunderstand your text – even for a fraction of a second. I believe that, even in cases of frequently used compound modifiers such as “high-school student”, you should use a hyphen. If skipping a hyphen produces ambiguity, don’t think twice. Put it in. If there are three words in the compound modifier, always use one hyphen (“advanced high-school student”). I am in favor of using hyphens all the time. It certainly prevents confusion.

There are dozens of hard-and-fast rules about hyphenation which would probably leave you scratching your head, so I have tried to simplify the process and give you a few basic guidelines:

• Adjectives: Always hyphenate two adjectives that modify a noun: “a well-trained writer.” There is some confusion about hyphenating adjectives and nouns. When the adjective “near” modifies another adjective, they should be hyphenated (“near-fatal accident”), but when it is a noun (“near miss”), there is no need for a hyphen.
• Adverbs: While most compound adverbs are written as two words (distributed all over, going full speed), those adverbial compounds beginning with “over” or “under” should be hyphenated (“over-eagerly”, “under-handedly”). Adverbial compounds consisting of spelled-out fractions are also hyphenated: (“two-thirds completed”). Don’t put a hyphen after an adverb, ending in "ly", if it serves as an adjective (“a brightly colored shirt”). This is a hotly debated issue so if you disagree just make sure you are consistent in usage.

Nouns: Compound nouns tend to evolve into single words (“backseat driver”). If in doubt, assume that the hyphen is unnecessary.

• Multiword Compounds: Expressions such as “back-to-back,” and “up-to-date” should always include hyphens.
• Prefixes: A prefix is a word stem that cannot stand alone (non, anti, pro, re, quasi, ex, etc.). They are either hyphenated or combined into single words, but can never stand alone. You must use “pro-American” but – like so many other oft-used multiple terms – “noncompliance” has become an accepted word.
• Confusing Words: Some words maintain a hyphen in order to avoid confusion with a similar word that has a different meaning (“re-cover,” as opposed to “recover” and “re-creation” instead of “recreation”). It may take a few minutes but you will figure this one out.

If you are not certain whether to hyphenate or not, look the word up in an on-line dictionary.