Compound adjectives: A grammar rant

Hello, my name is M, and I can't read a sentence without analyzing it for grammatical errors and other no-nos.

Despite this quirk, I try not to judge bad grammar for a few reasons. First, I make mistakes all the time. I frequently read content that I wrote and wonder how I earned a degree in English. Second, while I was lucky and received a comprehensive education in grammar, not everyone else did, and grammar isn't one of those parts of life that you just pick up. And finally, grammar rules are constantly changing, and rule books frequently contradict each other.

However, I feel the need to speak out about a particular grammar issue that I recently encountered on several respected news sites. My complaint is over the misuse of the hyphen. Oh, hyphen, how do I love thee normally! But when you're misused--you're a bad hyphen, a very bad hyphen! And how frequently have you become a bad hyphen these days.

Here's the rule: When two adjectives combine to form a compound adjective that comes before a noun, you need to hyphenate the adjectives. Here are a few examples:

* The blue-green water was beautiful.
It's not blue water. It's not green water. It's blue-green water.

* The upper-right corner was torn off.
It's not the upper corner. It's not the right corner. It's the upper-right corner.

* Bad weather advice.
Ha! Tricked you here. No hyphen needed. It's weather advice that is bad, not bad-weather advice. (Technically, this phrase is a misuse of "weather," which is a noun that I am using as an adjective. The grammatically correct phrase would be "Bad advice for the weather," or something to that effect, but I took liberties for my title. It's my blog, so I can do that.)

This rule is straightforward; however, people seem to want to extend the hyphen to other word relationships in which it does not belong. For instance, a hyphen does not belong in the following word construction: Adverb adjective noun.

For example:

* The grammatically correct phrase
* The aptly named dog
* The hopelessly lost tourist

The hyphen does not belong in this pairing because the adverb is modifying the adjective and therefore the two words do not need to be interpreted as one.

This is my plea to the world of journalism: please do not insert hyphens between adverbs and adjectives.

Nobody likes a bad hyphen.