Hyphen Quotes

Dan had some questions about Chris-R. We all did. Why the name "Chris-R," for instance? What's with that hyphen? Tommy's explanation: "He is gangster." What about this drug business, which never comes up either before or after Chris-R's only scene in the film? "We have big problem in society with the drugs. ~ Greg Sestero

Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips? ~ Martin Gardner

Many of the silliest ambiguities in the Internet memes come from newspaper headlines and magazine tag lines precisely because they have been stripped of all punctuation. Two of my favorites are MAN EATING PIRANHA MISTAKENLY SOLD AS PET FISH and RACHAEL RAY FINDS INSPIRATION IN COOKING HER FAMILY AND HER DOG. The first is missing the hyphen that bolts together the pieces of the compound word that was supposed to remind readers of the problem with piranhas, man-eating. The second is missing the commas that delimit the phrases making up the list of inspirations: cooking, her family, and her dog. ~ Steven Pinker

You realize that everything you think and feel now will be encompassed in the hyphen between two years. ~ Paige Harbison

White people can describe themselves with just American. Only when pressed do they go into their ethnic heritage. Doesn't seem fair that I have to forever explain my origin story with that silent hyphen, whereas white people don't. It's complicated. But simple. Simplicated. ~ David Yoon

Yet there will always be a problem about getting rid of the hyphen: if it's not extra-marital sex (with a hyphen), it is perhaps extra marital sex, which is quite a different bunch of coconuts. Phrases abound that cry out for hyphens. Those much-invoked examples of the little used car, the superfluous hair remover, the pickled herring merchant, the slow moving traffic and the two hundred odd members of the Conservative Party would all be lost without it. ~ Lynne Truss

You know, mind allows us to portray in different sensory modalities, visual, auditory, olfactory, you name it, what we are like and what the world is like. But this very, very important quality of subjectivity, this quality that allows us to take a distant view and say, "I am here, I exist, I have a life and there are things around me that refer to me." That me-ness, M-E-hyphen, that is what really constitutes consciousness. ~ Antonio Damasio

One bad habit Teall wishes to cure us of right away is mistreating the hyphen by putting it between an adverb ending in ly and a participle. His example is a headline: "Use of 'Methodist' Is Newly-Defined." Lavishing sympathy on the hyphen, he laments, "Did you ever see a hyphen more completely wasted? A hyphen more unnecessarily and fruitlessly employed?" Even ~ Mary Norris

I'm going. A lot is possible. The weather's nice, Captain. Look: such a beautiful, solid,
rough sky -you'd almost feel like pounding a block of wood into it and hanging yourself on
it. Only because of the hyphen between yes and no? Is no to blame for yes, or yes for no?
I'll have to think about that. ~ Georg Buchner

Although my speaking will reflect the grace and mercy I've been offered and humbly accepted, I don't have to say much because words only go so far. At the end of the day, it will not be the year of my birth or the year of my death that will matter; it will be that hyphen in the midst of it all that will display how I lived my life; will tell a full and complete story; will say more than my mouth could utter.

My actions, my trials, my triumphs, my defeats, my victories - my life will preach louder than an auditory testimony ever could.

I am working on the person I want to remember. ~ Elissa Gabrielle

As you can see, the hyphen is a nasty, tricky, evil little mark that gets its kicks igniting arguments in newsrooms and trying to make everyone in the English-speaking world look like an idiot - it's the Bill Maher of punctuation. ~ June Casagrande

When we turned right on Thirty-fifth Street our suffix came along. By the time we rolled to the curb in front of Wolfe's house there wasn't even hyphen between us. ~ Rex Stout

Hold your finger to the sky with so much force it lengthens like a spine. Look up to the point of it and beyond. There. That tiny patch of the world, no bigger than the tip of your finger. At first glance, it might look like one flat color. Blue, or gray, or maybe even orange.

But it's much more complex than that. Squint. See the daubs of lilac. The streak of sage no wider than a hyphen. That butterscotch smear and the faint wash of carnelian. All of them coming together to swirl at the point just above your finger.

Breathe them in. Let them settle in your lungs. Those are the colors of right now. ~ Emily X.R. Pan

Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name. ~ Woodrow Wilson

In 1962, a typo by a NASA programmer resulted in Mariner 1 being sent into the ocean rather than its intended destination, Venus. The cause was a missed hyphen. ~ Drummond Moir

My karma's the comma that puts you inside of a coma,
Hyphen, dot, dot, semi-colon, leave you semi-swollen.
Question mark, you pregnant?
Oh you're not? I love you, period. ~ Chino XL

If commas are open to interpretation, hyphens are downright Delphic. ~ Mary Norris

We are a handful of dust in God's image
Before we return again to dusty grave
Life isn't a war, it's a scrimmage
A hyphen between two dates. ~ Justin Wetch

I guess none of the sides of my hyphen are particularly subtle cultures. But perhaps there is also a sense that these characters are all parentless - every character in this book is feral in some way - without any guidance in their upbringing. They find no choice but to seek refuge in extreme behaviors. ~ Porochista Khakpour

Tea - that perfume that one drinks, that connecting hyphen ... ~ Natalie Clifford Barney

There are some men who in a fifty-fifty proposition insist on getting the hyphen too. ~ Laurence J. Peter

I lost a whole continent.
a whole continent from my memory.
unlike all other hyphenated americans
my hyphen is made of blood.
when africa says hello
my mouth is a heartbreak
because i have nothing in my tongue
to answer her.
i don't know how to say hello to my mother. ~ Nayyirah Waheed

All flowers are flirtatious - particularly if they carry hyphenated names. The more hyphens in the name, the flirtier the flower. The one-hyphen flowers - black-eyed Susan; lady-smock; musk-rose - may give you only a shy glance and then drop their eyes; the two-hyphen flowers - forget-me-not; flower-de-luce - keep glancing. Flowers with three or more hyphens flirt all over the garden and continue even when they are cut and arranged in vases. John-go-to-bed-at-noon does not go there simply to sleep. ~ Willard R. Espy

A cabinet is a combining committee, a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other. ~ Walter Bagehot

The only difference between resigning and resigning is a hyphen. ~ Tim McCarver