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Subject:Re: Which form is correct? From:mpriestley -at- VNET -dot- IBM -dot- COM Date:Wed, 27 Jul 1994 10:51:06 EDT
Heilan Yvette Grimes writes:
>>lower-right corner
>> or
>>lower right corner
>I would opt for lower right corner. If you were to use the word right-hand
>corner (which is hyphenated) then you would write lower right-hand corner.
>(Same applies with left-hand corner.) So, I would feel it is the same only
>you have omitted the -hand.
The Chicago Manual of Style has a pretty good section on compound adjectives.
As I understand it, "lower-right corner" would be correct. If you used
a hyphenated word as one element of the compound (eg "right-hand") then you
would use an en dash in place of a hyphen for the compound
(ie lower--right-hand) <- you'll have to pretend that doubledash is really
an en dash.
There are exceptions to this rule (if the first word in the compound ends
in -ly, as in brightly lit room, you don't need to hyphenate), but I think
lower-right corner is what they would recommend. They recommend
"lesser-known man" and "low-level job", and if you squint your eyes a bit
that looks like it might apply to this case....
Michael Priestley
mpriestley -at- vnet -dot- ibm -dot- com
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