Heavy lifting!

This workout centers on section 1, “Compounds According to Category,” in our extended hyphenation table under paragraph 7.96 in CMOS 18. We’re calling this workout “part 1” because hyphens are a vast topic, destined to confound us in many ways and certainly worth a series of workouts.

Advanced editors might tackle the questions cold; learners can study the hyphenation table before answering the questions.

This quiz is so tricky that whoever takes it deserves a tip (see also “Hyphens, Part 2”): Within each question, the examples are either all correct or all incorrect.

(Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online may click through to the linked sections of the Manual. We also offer a 30-day free trial of CMOS Online.)

Note: Dictionaries and style guides sometimes disagree. These questions are designed to test your knowledge of The Chicago Manual of Style, which prefers the dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com. Other style guides may follow a different dictionary.

Now updated to refer and link to the 18th edition.

Chicago Style Workout 17: Hyphens, Part 1

1. Spelled-out numbers twenty-one through ninety-nine are hyphenated; others are open.

twenty-eight
three hundred
nineteen forty-five
five hundred fifty-two

True

False

2. Colors are hyphenated before but not after a noun.

emerald-green tie
reddish-brown flagstone
black-and-white print
but
his tie is emerald green
the stone is reddish brown
the truth isn’t black and white

True

False

3. Age terms are hyphenated in both noun and adjective forms except as in the last two examples.

a three-year-old
a five-year-old child
a fifty-five-year-old woman
seven years old
eighteen years of age

True

False

4. Compass points and directions are closed in noun, adjective, and adverb forms unless three directions are combined, in which case a hyphen is used after the first.

northeast
southwest
east-northeast

True

False

5. Non-English phrases are open unless hyphens appear in the original language.

an a priori argument
a Sturm und Drang drama
in vitro fertilization
a tête-à-tête approach

[Note: Familiar non-English phrases like these are not italic in Chicago style; here they appear in italics only because they are examples.]

True

False

6. Simple fractions are hyphenated in noun, adjective, and adverb forms, except when the second element is already hyphenated.

one-half
one twenty-fifth
one and three-quarters
a two-thirds majority
a one twenty-fifth share

True

False

7. Compounds formed with fractions are open as nouns but hyphenated as adjectives.

a half hour
a half-hour session
a quarter mile
a quarter-mile run
an eighth note

True

False

8. A number plus an abbreviation should always be hyphenated.

the 33-m distance
a 2-kg weight
a 3-ft.-high wall

True

False

9. A number plus a noun is hyphenated as an adjective before another noun but otherwise open.

a hundred-meter race
a 250-page book
it’s three inches high
one and a half inches

True

False

10. A number plus the word percent is always hyphenated.

50-percent
a 10-percent raise
a 30–40-percent increase

True

False

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Photo: Zulfiya Chinshanlo, 2009 World Champion, Olympic Weightlifting (53 kg class), Goyang, South Korea, by Rob Macklem, via Wikimedia Commons.

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