Re: hyphenated word grammar question

["Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- net -dot- au>]

Marie asks:
> I'm am thinking that unless it is part of a registered 
> trademark, the three correct spellings are trade-in, 
> Trade-in, and trade-ins.   Does anyone have any 
> information to the contrary?


Marie, you could draw the following conclusions 
from Dick Margulis's response -- and if you did, you 
would be correct. And the really cool thing is that you 
can apply these guidelines to hundreds -- nay, thousands -- 
of other English words, and *still* be correct.

1. Trade-in is not a word. It is two words.

2. The hyphen is used to connect them when
they are used as a compound modifier -- as in
"trade-in value".

3. The hyphen is used to connect them when
they are used as a compound  noun -- as in 
"other trade-ins".

4. The hyphen is *not* used to connect them when
they are used as a verb-preposition combo -- as in
"Trade in your pencil stub".

The other cool thing is that if you forget these guidelines
(and most of us do sometimes) you can look them|
up in any basic grammar handbook.

So now go tell those silly interface coders a thing or two.
They'll ignore you anyway.

--
Mike West
Melbourne


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