October 15th, 2009
Probiotics, Fixer-Uppers, and Hyphens
“Probiotics are live micro-organisms that work by restoring the balance of intestinal bacteria and raising resistance to harmful germs.”
– Tara Parker-Pope, “Probiotics: Looking underneath the Yogurt Label,”
New York Times online, September 28, 2009
A recent New York Times article refers to (unhyphenated) “probiotics,” which are (hyphenated) “micro-organisms” in yogurt. Two days later, the paper ran a Home & Garden article about a “Fixer-Upper” on the housing market in St. Paul, MN.*
So how do you know when your nouns need hyphens? Hyphenation can change over time, so just check a current dictionary like Webster’s Eleventh. Webster’s keeps a hyphen in some multipart nouns, like a self-starter and a heads-up, but omits hyphens in other nouns like roundup, highlights, and microorganism.
Still, feel free to add a hyphen if you’re uncomfortable when a prefix repeats a noun’s first letter – e.g., two back-to-back letter o‘s. “Micro-organisms” is an OK spelling, too.
For more tips on how to use hyphens correctly, see Write It Well’s book Professional Writing Skills: A Self-Paced Training Program.
*Also see Michael Tortorello, “No-Fault Fixer-Upper,” New York Times online, September 30, 2009.