Donna Lowe

it’s generally a safe bet to hyphenate the following: •Compound modifiers consisting of two or more adjectives that precede a noun and act as a single idea, like silly-looking monster (to differentiate from a jovial monster whose primary responsibility is to look).

generally use Latino rather than Hispanic when a broader term is necessary.

The birth of the modern emoticon, grandparent of the emoji, is widely accepted to be attributed to Scott E. Fahlman, a Carnegie Mellon University professor

A more important question is when you should link to a source. Doing so when citing any factual or quoted information that wasn’t delivered to you firsthand is generally a good idea: results of a study, an interview from another publication or story, statistics, additional examples, etc.

one important function of the comma is its use in what’s called the vocative case, or when someone (or something—sometimes life gets lonely) is being addressed directly.

Arabic names are often formatted as personal name + father’s first name + paternal grandfather’s first name, each sometimes offset with bin or ibn (meaning “son of”) or bint (“daughter of”).

•Between adjectives whose order can be swapped (“He was a kind, generous man”).

before you find yourself on a dash spree, remember: less Morse code, more English.

If the word ends in a consonant, add ing or ed, with no hyphen (e.g., computering, computered