Home Run or homerun

If you are using two words as an an adjective phrase, it's hyphenated unless the first word ends in -ly.

I work for an anal-retentive editor.

My editor is anal retentive.

I wouldn't use walk-off homer because it's a cliche.

By the way, if you are talking about the cartoon character, it's Homer, not homer.

If you are talking about a sportswriter (or is it sports writer?), it's homer.

 

Unless one of your reporters writes it ...

 

I do "consecutive" anyway.

Suggestion: I've become a lot calmer on one front as a copy editor by just finally realizing that hyphenation of compound modifiers (having nothing to do with "third straight") is an absolutely inexact science. You can't be given a hard and fast rule because there isn't one.

Some have probably heard the "hot dog" rule, that it's absurd to hyphenate something like "hot dog bun" because nobody's going to think you have a "hot" "dog bun." And that's right.

Nobody hyphenates "high school sports." Why? Just because.

So if you do or don't hypenate a compound modifier that's clear in either sense, the world is not going to end either way.

Err on the side of less hyphenation, not more.

 

I say the same thing about capitalization of titles.

If there is any doubt, do not capitalize.

 

Agreed.

There's nothing wrong with straight. And it is two words.

But consecutive just sounds better, I guess.

 

I think part of the reason straight falls out of favor (in addition to its multiple meanings) is that it doesn't break. Really long one-syllable word.

Recently discovered this during a stint on the desk.

 

Not as a statement to this thread or its merits, but ...

Dumb ass or dumbass?

 

dumb-ass

 

assclown or asshat are preferable.

 

Actually, it has nothing to do with the breaking part.

The old copy editor line is "as opposed to crooked?" So it's the multiple meanings.

 

dumbass, no hyphen. dumb doesn't modify ass (it would if you used, say, dumb-assed motherfucker). a dumbass is a noun specific from dumb ass -- dumbass being something, while dumb ass being an ass that happens to be dumb.

 

A convenient excuse to get someone to use a word that breaks better.