Re: Hyphen in command-line utility?

["Susan W Gallagher" <susanwg -at- gmail -dot- com>]

It is neither right nor wrong to hyphenate "command line" when it's used as
a compound modifier. The rule is to use the hyphen except for compound
modifiers created from adverbs ending in "ly", but standard practice (as
language evolves) is to use the hyphen only when the compound modifier could
reasonably be misunderstood. That said, if your standard is to be consistent
in your treatment of compound modifiers, you are not wrong to use the hyphen
in this and other phrases whether you think they could be misunderstood or
not.
HTH
-Sue Gallagher
-who learned hyphenation "real good" when working in version control and
writiing "check in" and "check out" at least 10 times per page, in every
possible grammatical construction


> > From: Sonja McShane
>
> > For now, after much searching in archives and the Internet, I need to
> > know definitively if I should hyphenate "command-line utility". I know
> > the compound modifier 'command line' can't be misinterpreted
> > if it's not
> > hyphenated, but I really, really feel the need to hyphenate it anyway.
>
>
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