Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and this is the last episode in a series on em dashes, en dashes, and hyphens. We conclude with hyphens and a general word of advice: You almost never need to use these.
Yes, there are such things as hyphenated words. But what a lot of people do incorrectly is put a hyphen after a prefix, as in co-author, bi-polar, re-assess. Especially with two-letter prefixes, there’s rarely a need for a hyphen here. When in doubt, you can look up the proper spelling in Merriam-Webster, which is a standard dictionary for academic and nonfiction writers. Or, if you don’t want to look it up, it’s generally best to assume that words with prefixes don’t require hyphens. One weird exception that I came across recently, though, was re-found, as in to found an organization a second time.
That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.