Hyphenmania

How can you tell if a hyphen belongs in the word in question? Is the letter directly in front of the hypothetical hyphen pronounced as a separate syllable? (In other words, T-shirt-"TEE-shirt"-instead of Tshirt-"tuh-SHIRT") If it is pronounced as a separate syllable, pop a hyphen in there. Often, words which should include hyphens are left high and dry and written as tsquare, email, xray, etc.

Also, how do you know whether to capitalize the pre-hyphen letter? The general rule tells us to capitalize letters used individually to represent an abbreviation or shape (which is the case most of the time).

However, there may be some exceptions. For example, e-mail is often written (and as I believe, rightly so) with a lower-case e, even though the "e" is an abbreviation for "electronic." Perhaps this exception is made because the word is now so widely used?

Here are some common examples with their correct forms:

• e-mail (also covered in a former article)

• T-bone

• H-bomb

• T-shirt

• V-chip

• x-ray

• A-bomb

• U-turn

• D-day

• A-line

• T-square

• A-frame

• O-ring

• V-neck

Can you add more to this list?

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