Don't Hyphenate

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Adjective + noun [or participle], e.g., the neighborhood is middle class, and he is tight lipped

Adverbs ending in –ly + participle or adjective, e.g., highly paid and utterly useless

Colors, except black-and-white (before a noun), e.g., greenish blue and red and green dress

Gerund + Noun, e.g., running shoes

Noun + gerund, e.g., decision making

Noun + noun, single function (noun form), e.g., student nurse and master builder

Noun + participle (noun form), e.g., I am software challenged

Number + abbreviation + noun, e.g., a 3 ft. distance

Number + percentage (as a noun or adjective), e.g., 30 percent and a 50 percent raise

Prefixes (words formed with prefixes are almost always single words, no hyphen), e.g., antebellum, antihero (but anti-inflammatory), bivalent, bioecology, coequal (but co-opt and co-worker), counterclockwise, cyberspace, extramural (but extra-administrative), hyperactive, infrastructure, interfaith, intramural (intra-arterial), macroeconomics, megamall, metalanguage, microeconomics, midthirties (but mid-July, the mid-1990s, and mid-twentieth century history), minivan, multiauthor (but multi-institutional), neonate, nonviolent, overmagnified, postdoctoral and postmodernism (but post-Vietnam), premodern (but Pre-Raphaelite), proindustrial (but pro-Canadian), protolanguage, pseudotechnocrat, reunify (but re-cover as distinct from recover), semiopaque, socioeconomic and sociocultural, subzero, superannuated, supranational, transcontinental, ultrasophisticated, unfunded, and underemployed.