Examples

Example 1

My mother-in-law doesn't know that the reindeer sweater she loaned me is for my office's ugly Christmas sweater party.

We won't tell. We will, however, tell you that since mother, in, and law work as a unit to form a compound noun here, you should use hyphens to connect them.

Example 2

Barry started the season on the B-team, but by the playoffs he was the Chargers' starting point guard.

Way to go, Barry. In this example, we use a hyphen to join the letter B to the word team because we have championship-level grammar skills.

Example 3

On their honeymoon, Sylvester and John stayed at an all-inclusive, five-star resort with an infinity pool, ocean view, and their own private butler named Fitzwilliam.

In this swanky sentence, all-inclusive is hyphenated because all is one of those prefixes that requires a hyphen to join it to a word. Five-star is hyphenated because five and star function as a single modifier to describe the ritzy resort.

Examples

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

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