HYPHEN: The hyphen performs the following functions:
1. When two or more nouns are used as adjectives, a hyphen is sometimes used to link all the nouns: A three-man committee. However, to check whether a compound noun is two words, one word, or hyphenated, you may need to look it up in the dictionary. If you cannot find the word in the dictionary, treat the noun as separate words. Here are the three forms discussed: eyewitness (one word compound), eye shadow(two word compound), eye-opener (hyphenated compound). Again, phrases that have verb, noun and adjective forms should appear as separate words when used as verbs and as one word when used as nouns or adjectives: The engine will BREAK DOWN. We suffered a BREAKDOWN in communication.
2. The hyphen joins some prefixes to the main words: co-education, anti-climax
3. It is used to split a word at the end of a line such that the part that cannot be contained is taken to the next line. It is important to break a word at the edge of a line on a syllable and not just in between a syllable: accommo-dation (right) intimidat-ion (wrong)
4. A hyphen is also used between compound numbers from twenty-one to ninety-nine.
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