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Economy class ticket - hyphenated or not?

 
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Perilla



Joined: 09 Jul 2010
Posts: 792
Location: Hong Kong

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:08 am    Post subject: Economy class ticket - hyphenated or not? Reply with quote

Not exactly job related, but the source of some discussion at work. Interested for input. My opinion is that the following can be hyphenated or not depending on how much you like hyphens:

The airline is offering economy class tickets at reduced prices.

OR

The airline is offering economy-class tickets at reduced prices.

You could argue that economy class is a compound modifier of ticket, so the hyphen is OK. Or you could argue that "economy class ticket" is so a familiar that the hyphen has become redundant - if you Google it most results are without the hyphen.
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Teacher in Rome



Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 1286

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Throwing my hat into the ring.

Isn't it a bit like other compound adjectives, which can be hyphenated before the noun but not after?

The airline is offering reduced economy-class / economy class tickets

BUT

The tickets are economy class (Not economy-class)

Or am I off base on this?
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Kofola



Joined: 20 Feb 2009
Posts: 159
Location: Slovakia

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 8:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The current trend seems to be to omit them where the meaning is clear and use them where it's not. The classic examples being

a cycling-friendly boss, and
a cycling friendly boss

Although in the first example I think the hyphen could be omitted if the context clearly indicated the meaning.

Reduced economy class tickets works as long as there is no such thing as reduced-economy class tickets. If there was such a thing then we might need to distinguish between

reduced-economy class tickets, and
reduced economy-class tickets

But generally, I think punctuation is disappearing in cases where it is not absolutely necessary.
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The hyphen is on the road to extinction. Lookn at some 19th century prose and you will see hyphens everywhere. I just wish the apostrophe would follow itb down that road !
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Henry_Cowell



Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Kofola wrote:
The current trend seems to be to omit them where the meaning is clear and use them where it's not. The classic examples being

a cycling-friendly boss, and
a cycling friendly boss

Although in the first example I think the hyphen could be omitted if the context clearly indicated the meaning.

Reduced economy class tickets works as long as there is no such thing as reduced-economy class tickets. If there was such a thing then we might need to distinguish between

reduced-economy class tickets, and
reduced economy-class tickets

But generally, I think punctuation is disappearing in cases where it is not absolutely necessary.

You are correct to say that hyphens tend to disappear because people assume the meaning is clear without it.

But I disagree with your examples!

As an editor, I'd always put the hyphen in "cycling-friendly," which is not at all a common compound outside of certain contexts. If the boss is both cycling and friendly, you would use a comma: a cycling, friendly boss (or, much better: a friendly boss who cycles).

In addition, there is no such thing as "reduced-economy" class -- although it certainly seems to exist based on my last two flights. Cool

A hyphen can join only two words. If you wanted to join "reduced" with the two-word phrase "economy class," you would use an en dash rather than a hyphen. Ah, the en dash: another nearly extinct marking. Shocked
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johnslat



Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Henry_Cowell,

Thanks for your post, I'll admit my ignorance in thinking - for lo these many years - (an example of an "em dash") that a dash was a dash was a dash.

Now, I know better, dash it all Very Happy:

"Dashes
There are many uses of the en and em dash and also many ways to form these dashes using your computer. The following explanations offer the most common uses and methods for forming these dashes.

En Dash
An en dash, roughly the width of an n, is a little longer than a hyphen. It is used for periods of time when you might otherwise use to.

Examples:
The years 2001�2003
January�June

An en dash is also used in place of a hyphen when combining open compounds.

Examples:
North Carolina�Virginia border
a high school�college conference

Em Dash
An em dash is the width of an m. Use an em dash sparingly in formal writing. In informal writing, em dashes may replace commas, semicolons, colons, and parentheses to indicate added emphasis, an interruption, or an abrupt change of thought.

Examples:
You are the friend�the only friend�who offered to help me.

Never have I met such a lovely person�before you.

I pay the bills�she has all the fun.
A semicolon would be used here in formal writing.

I need three items at the store�dog food, vegetarian chili, and cheddar cheese.
Remember, a colon would be used here in formal writing.

My agreement with Fiona is clear�she teaches me French and I teach her German.
Again, a colon would work here in formal writing.

Please call my agent�Jessica Cohen�about hiring me.
Parentheses or commas would work just fine here instead of the dashes.

I wish you would�oh, never mind.
This shows an abrupt change in thought and warrants an em dash.

To form an em dash on most PCs, type the first word, then hold down the ALT key while typing 0151 on the numerical pad on the right side of your keyboard. Then type the second word. You may also form an em dash by typing the first word, hitting the hyphen key twice, and then typing the second word. Your program will turn the two hyphens into an em dash for you.

While there are many more possible uses of the em dash, by not providing additional rules, I am hoping to curb your temptation to employ this convenient but overused punctuation mark."

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/dashes.asp

Regards,
Dashing - John
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Henry_Cowell



Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley

PostPosted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

John, I have rarely (if ever) seen an en dash used outside American English contexts for combining open compounds. For example, it does not seem to be used in the U.K. for that purpose.

But en dashes are slowly disappearing in the U.S. The all-powerful hyphen is taking over! That's what happens when the craft of typesetting is taken over by people like you and me sitting at our keyboards. Exclamation
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Glenski



Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Henry_Cowell wrote:
A hyphen can join only two words.
Well, technically, yes, since it is only one symbol, but you can use more than one hyphen in certain combinations.

He has the patience of a 3-year-old.
The pipe was divided into four 2-meter-long sections.
How's your mother-in-law?

Economy class ticket does not need a hyphen.
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Perilla



Joined: 09 Jul 2010
Posts: 792
Location: Hong Kong

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Glenski wrote:
Economy class ticket does not need a hyphen.


I agree, but is that simply because, as mentioned variously above, the hyphen is becoming outmoded where it is unlikely that any confusion will arise? Because it seems to me that according to the basic rules of usage for hyphens it would be perfectly OK to use a hyphen between economy and class in this example. In other words, both are correct, aren't they? Perhaps it just depends on how old-fashioned you are.

Interesting about the em and en dashes -- despite being an editor I had never heard of them! In our house style we use what we call the short dash as the regular hyphen (e.g. he's old-fashioned) and the slightly longer dash (the en dash) to separate sentence parts (e.g. Obama is a good man -- some say a great man.) (But I can't reproduce it on this site, dash it -- hence the double dashes).

The em dash (thanks John) is a new discovery for me on my keyboard -- I've only seen it used in American publications.
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Henry_Cowell



Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not sure why American typesetters were so compulsive as to define the two different dashes (en and em) and to give them such clear uses. They are still readily available in the Symbols menu of most computer applications but, alas, not available in most email and mobile clients.

En dash: the length of an uppercase N in a font
Em dash: the length of an uppercase M in a font

Another interesting yet quickly disappearing use of the en dash is to join destinations in a "from... to" construction:
    Chicago�Cleveland flight (not merely hyphenated as Chicago-Cleveland)
    Paris�London train
This is sort of the same usage as the "from...to" en dash that joins numbers in a range:
    pages 175�210 (rather than merely hyphenated as 175-210)
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Glenski



Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

PostPosted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Perilla wrote:
Glenski wrote:
Economy class ticket does not need a hyphen.


I agree, but is that simply because, as mentioned variously above, the hyphen is becoming outmoded where it is unlikely that any confusion will arise?
I took the easy way out and just looked in a dictionary to confirm. Wink
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