Chicago Rules
I refer, of course, to the Chicago Manual of Style, where I have just accidentally stumbled upon the answer to a vexing question of style while looking for the answer as to whether "tree felling" (as in, the activity of felling trees) should be hyphenated. (No.)
I have long wondered what to do when open compound phrases (that is, those without punctuation connection them, such as "Nobel Prize") are combined with hyphenated compound phrases (such as "prize-winning"). Mostly they just look ugly no matter what you do, but it turns out that the proper way to deal with this situation (according to Chicago, which I am assured by at least two vocal game writers is the Best City in the World) is with an en dash.
The thing that is destroying me now is that due to the character encoding confusion that exists between Movable Type and some other portion of the guts of jefftidball.com, any en dash I type here will come across as garbage in your browser, so I can't demonstrate the way the compounded compound should appear without substituting a hyphen, which is incorrect.
AAARRRGGH!
Thus, you shall have to imagine what the phrase to describe one who has won a Nobel Prize looks like on your own. But at least you'll be imagining it correctly.
Comments
Poor N-dash. It gets such little love. Good to know it has another proper place in life.
It's like a riddle. It's "Nobel Prize-winning" isn't it (he said, considering an internet hyphen to be keystrokingly congruent with dropping a G in verbal discourse)?
Indeed it is. Though in that case, I suppose it would be:
Nobel Prize-winnin'
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/emen/
Gary, whoever you are, I love you.
Luke, use the hyphen. I am your grammatician.