Call me crazy. I'm dog-sitting this weekend, and we already have three dogs of our own. The visiting dog is a 1-year-old miniature beagle, and our beagle mix thinks he's a long-lost brother. They race ...

There’s nothing wrong with hyphenating “multi-cultural.” There’s nothing wrong with not hyphenating “multicultural.” There’s nothing wrong with doing it both ways in a single document. But it’s very ...

People get hyped about hyphens. Hyphens are tricky creatures that can't be summed up in a few words. They are sometimes overused, other times underused. They follow a few rules then haphazardly ignore ...

Narrator: Oh no Brain! They're not the same thing at all. In fact they're really quite different. A hyphen is used to join two words together that describe a noun. They help us avoid confusion when ...

Which is right: a backup plan, a back-up plan or a back up plan? How about a cutoff date, a cut-off date or a cut off date? A takeout menu, a take-out menu or a take out menu? The answer: There is no ...

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, the scaled-down, two-volume version of the mammoth 20-volume OED, just got a little shorter. With the dispatch of a waiter flicking away flyspecks, the editor, ...