# hyphenating colors, what's your opinion



## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

I noticed in several books I was reading that different authors handle colors differently. Looking it up online I noticed that there varying 'rules' depending on the style guide you use.

the navy-blue jacket
the nave blue jacket

he wore hideous forest-green pants
he wore hideous forest green pants


which style do you prefer? And why?


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## Guest (May 20, 2014)

The Chicago Manual of Style says that you hyphenate if the color appears BEFORE the noun (emerald-green eyes) but not after the noun (Her eyes were emerald green.) The AP Style Guide follows the same construction. This is for purposes of clarity.


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## Tim_A (May 25, 2013)

Personally I don't, unless I'm describing a colour blend. Oxford blue, lime green, sky blue, purple-green red-yellow, red-green colour blindness...


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

KL_Phelps said:


> which style do you prefer? And why?


If you're using the two words as a compound adjective before its noun, then it's correct to hyphenate (and any professional editor would amend lack of hyphenation). To write "a navy blue suit" is just wrong. " A navy-blue suit" is correct. I think this one probably *isn't* just opinion, in the sense that if you asked 20 people who edit for a living, all 20 would say the same, not just 19 of them. I _think_.

This isn't so after the noun, though: you would write "A suit of navy blue" rather than "A suit of navy-blue" because in this construction, you're not _really_ using the word "blue" as an adjective, _per se_.


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## Guest (May 20, 2014)

EelKat said:


> So, with that in mind, the fact that I sell a majority of my books via local print to folks who really are lucky they can read at all, that is why I often toss grammar rules to the wind, because the right way to do it often looks wrong to a reader with little to no grammar knowledge. Thus who my target audience is, greatly effects if I use the right way to do it or the way that looks better to my readers.


While I agree that it is important to write to the norms of one's genre, there is a difference between using simple grammar and deliberately writing something wrong because one caters to semi-illiterate readers. Just as writers should challenge themselves to improve their craft, reading is the best way to encourage people to improve their comprehension. You do your readers a disservice by allowing them to wallow in poor communication skills. Aren't you simply reinforcing their ignorance?

This is something that hits close to home for me. I have young relatives who read voraciously, but have NO reading comprehension. They read a book a day, but can't follow written instructions or read a newspaper article or construct a cohesive paragraph. And it wasn't until I picked up a few of their books and realized how horribly written they were that it made sense. I'm not talking about bad plots. I mean horrendous sentence construction. Run on sentences. Jumping between past and present tense not for stylist reasons but because it is clear the author doesn't know the difference between present and past tense. We've become so obsessed with getting kids to read ANYTHING that we don't realize that a diet of "junk food" on the brain has the same impact as a diet of junk food on the body.

I'm not saying things should be edited to the standards of a literary opus. But they should be at a minimum grammatically sound. If for no other reason than to not contribute to the general dumbing down of people.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Julie, I love you.

My other thought, EK, is that while I understand where you're coming from, wouldn't throwing grammar to the wind for a small, local audience be detrimental to gaining a larger audience? 

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> You do your readers a disservice by allowing them to wallow in poor communication skills. Aren't you simply reinforcing their ignorance?


Julie,

You're my hero.

***

On topic: This is like asking, "Is subject-verb agreement really important? What's your opinion?"



Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> The Chicago Manual of Style says that you hyphenate if the color appears BEFORE the noun (emerald-green eyes) but not after the noun (Her eyes were emerald green.) The AP Style Guide follows the same construction. This is for purposes of clarity.


What she said...


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## Daniel Dennis (Mar 3, 2014)

zoe tate said:


> If you're using the two words as a compound adjective before its noun, then it's correct to hyphenate (and any professional editor would amend lack of hyphenation). To write "a navy blue suit" is just wrong. " A navy-blue suit" is correct. I think this one probably *isn't* just opinion, in the sense that if you asked 20 people who edit for a living, all 20 would say the same, not just 19 of them. I _think_.
> 
> This isn't so after the noun, though: you would write "A suit of navy blue" rather than "A suit of navy-blue" because in this construction, you're not _really_ using the word "blue" as an adjective, _per se_.


This is how I learned hyphenation as well. When I read "a navy blue suit" or "a forest green pants" it just looks wrong, especially when the words 'navy' and 'forest' have meanings and uses that aren't limited to color.


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## ElizaDee (Nov 25, 2013)

It's the NYT Style Guide that calls for "no hyphen in these forms: navy blue skirt; dark green paint." (See here.) So there's at least one, but NYT style is very light on the hyphenation of compounds compared to other styles (and of course it doesn't usually govern book publishing).

Edit: Also, the National Geographic style guide says "Do not hyphenate compound color modifiers unless both elements are colors of equal value: blue-black sky, gray-green eyes, but bluish black sky, lemon yellow dress, jade green lake, cobalt blue dish, dark blue suit."


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

ElizaDee said:


> It's the NYT Style Guide that calls for "no hyphen in these forms: navy blue skirt; dark green paint." (See here.) So there's at least one, but NYT style is very light on the hyphenation of compounds compared to other styles (and of course it doesn't usually govern book publishing).
> 
> Edit: Also, the National Geographic style guide says "Do not hyphenate compound color modifiers unless both elements are colors of equal value: blue-black sky, gray-green eyes, but bluish black sky, lemon yellow dress, jade green lake, cobalt blue dish, dark blue suit."


wow this thread is still going, sorry, got wrapped up working and forgot to check back. I can't remember which style guide I saw that didn't have it. For some reason I don't think it was the NYT. Anyway, I go with the hyphen, but like I said I had noticed the no hyphen in a few books lately and was really wondering if that was becoming the trend.


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## Guest (May 20, 2014)

ElizaDee said:


> It's the NYT Style Guide that calls for "no hyphen in these forms: navy blue skirt; dark green paint." (See here.) So there's at least one, but NYT style is very light on the hyphenation of compounds compared to other styles (and of course it doesn't usually govern book publishing).
> 
> Edit: Also, the National Geographic style guide says "Do not hyphenate compound color modifiers unless both elements are colors of equal value: blue-black sky, gray-green eyes, but bluish black sky, lemon yellow dress, jade green lake, cobalt blue dish, dark blue suit."


In both cases, those are news outlet guides that aren't meant to be used for fiction. News media tend to try to avoid as much punctuation as possible because punctuation takes up space. While not so much of an issue in digital media, it is still an issue in print where you only have two column inches allotted for a news article and you have to make every letter count.


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## ElizaDee (Nov 25, 2013)

Bards and Sages (Julie) said:


> In both cases, those are news outlet guides that aren't meant to be used for fiction. News media tend to try to avoid as much punctuation as possible because punctuation takes up space. While not so much of an issue in digital media, it is still an issue in print where you only have two column inches allotted for a news article and you have to make every letter count.


Agreed--I'd never use the NYT guide or any other journalistic guide for fiction! But the fact that news accounts for so much of what many readers read might explain some of the confusion--why hyphenation might "look wrong" to some readers.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

I applaud those who adhere to the guides (and thus to sense), but you're almost all wrong. Chicago, NYT, and NG *all agree*. You hyphenate colour compounds when they're pre-modifiers of equal weight, but not when the first of two colour words before a noun is actually an adverb modifying the second colour word. For example:

_navy blue jacket
forest green pants_

aren't hyphenated because "navy" and "forest" are adverbs modifying the adjectives "blue" and "green." In other words, "navy" and "forest" operate like "bright" and "dark" in "bright blue jacket" and "dark green pants."

Notice that the first colour doesn't modify the second in these compounds:

_blue-green sea
grey-green eyes_

They're hyphenated because "blue-green" and "grey-green" are single colours forming single modifiers.

By the way, I agree with Julie and others that ignoring grammar because your audience is semi-illiterate is, well..."not good."


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## ElizaDee (Nov 25, 2013)

WHDean said:


> I applaud those who adhere to the guides (and thus to sense), but you're almost all wrong. Chicago, NYT, and NG *all agree*. You hyphenate colour compounds when they're pre-modifiers of equal weight, but not when the first of two colour words before a noun is actually an adverb modifying the second colour word. For example:
> 
> _navy blue jacket
> forest green pants_
> ...


Actually, nope. You correctly explain the NYT rule, but not Chicago. Chicago (7.85) has the following as hyphenated:



> emerald-green tie
> reddish-brown flagstone
> blue-green algae
> snow-white dress


All Chicago cares about is whether the compound follows or precedes the noun. Also, _navy_ and _forest_ above aren't adverbs--they're nouns functioning adjectivally, modifying other adjectives.


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

I stand partially corrected (the irony wasn't me: the strong advocate of Chicago and fact checking didn't check it before weighing in   ). It does seem that Chicago has changed its position on hyphenating colour words -- at least from what I remember. All the same, its position might be simpler to follow but not as logical as it claims. 

Consider that adjectives that act like adverbs -- i.e., in modifying the colour instead of the noun -- and that can be used with most any colour still aren't hyphenated on their rule, as far as I can tell, so none of bright green, light green, dark green, brilliant green, pale green, pure green, translucent green, etc., are hyphenated when used as pre-modifiers. "He wore a bright green suit," not "He wore a bright-green suit." And they needn't be hyphenated because the qualities (bright, pale, dark) are properties of the colours, not the items, so there's generally no ambiguity. 

Yet Chicago stipulates that nouns that (I note) modify only one colour are hyphenated. Snow white, lily white, emerald green, forest green, pitch black, jet black, coal black, charcoal grey, lime green, sea green, slate green, lemon yellow, midnight blue, powder blue, navy blue, sky blue, etc. are hyphenated, even though the objects denoted by the nouns in these parings are usually the same colour as the colours they modify (e.g., pitch, jet, and coal are always black; snow and lilies white; emeralds green, etc.). In other words, these colour nouns acts like adverbs in modifying the adjectives, much in the same way the more universal modifiers did above (e.g., pale, brilliant, etc.).    

In between the universal modifiers and the one-colour modifiers are restricted modifiers like "bluish," "reddish," "greenish," etc., which can modify some colour words: one can have a "greenish black," but not a "whitish black" or a "reddish green." 

In contrast, colours like "blue-green" do have to be hyphenated (or en-dashed) to avoid ambiguity. A "blue green car" might be a blue car that's energy efficient, and a "blue black dress" might be a black dress that turned blue. Moreover, blue and green in "blue-green" modify each other equally -- "blue-green" meaning somewhere between blue and green. This category would also have to include inherently ambiguous colours like "dirty-blond" (e.g., "She had dirty-blond hair") and "baby-blue," as well as words paired with the word "coloured" ("a sable-coloured coat") and unusual colours (e.g., "She wore a dog-poo-brown coat.").  

It makes more sense, therefore, to follow the old rule about hyphenating to avoid ambiguity. "She slipped out the door and step onto the jet-black asphalt," but "It became darker and darker until the jet black night enveloped them." After all, it uncommon to see colour compounds like "forest green" and "navy blue" hyphenated because there's no need to disambiguate such familiar expressions.


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## Carradee (Aug 21, 2010)

WHDean said:


> Snow white, lily white, emerald green, forest green, pitch black, jet black, coal black, charcoal grey, lime green, sea green, slate green, lemon yellow, midnight blue, powder blue, navy blue, sky blue, etc. are hyphenated, even though the objects denoted by the nouns in these parings are usually the same colour as the colours they modify (e.g., pitch, jet, and coal are always black; snow and lilies white; emeralds green, etc.). In other words, these colour nouns acts like adverbs in modifying the adjectives, much in the same way the more universal modifiers did above (e.g., pale, brilliant, etc.).


The nouns actually act as *adjectives* (which can, in fact, modify other adjectives), and the nouns make the colors refer to specific shades. In that sense, it's acting like a noun adjunct or attributive noun. The hyphen is for clarity reasons, rather than necessarily part of speech reasons.

For example, "I went through the forest green reeds" misreads as "I went through the forest" with a word missing to connect the "green reeds" in there. Adding the hyphen clarifies the matter: "I went through the forest-green reeds."


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## WHDean (Nov 2, 2011)

Carradee said:


> The nouns actually act as *adjectives* (which can, in fact, modify other adjectives), and the nouns make the colors refer to specific shades. In that sense, it's acting like a noun adjunct or attributive noun. The hyphen is for clarity reasons, rather than necessarily part of speech reasons.
> 
> For example, "I went through the forest green reeds" misreads as "I went through the forest" with a word missing to connect the "green reeds" in there. Adding the hyphen clarifies the matter: "I went through the forest-green reeds."


Well, that's the convention that I (and most guides) follow, which I stated in the last paragraph of the last post and exemplified with the two uses of "jet black." In this first example, I hyphenated "jet-black," because one could "...step onto a jet..." [= aircraft]. In the second example, no ambiguity would arise. I think it was Chicago's old rule, too, but I don't have the 15th edition on hand.

As I tried to show with the fourfold division of colour words, the semantics are more complicated than the grammar. Some of the nouns used as adjectives are shades (the forest in forest green), yes, but others are not shades. There are no shades of black in a literal sense. And jet, pitch, and coal are all black things, so placing any of those words before black amounts to saying "black black" or "really black." There are shades of white, but saying "snow white" is really saying "really white." Similarly, emerald can only be used with green, navy with blue; yet both adjectives (unlike forest) can stand alone as colours ("emerald eyes" and "navy pants"). All this seems to make many of the members of this class of words more akin to rhetorical intensifiers than adjectives, which, in my view, makes it useful to think of them as acting/operating as adverbs like "very" in "very black."

My point about Chicago is that I think it draws the line in the wrong place: the rule trades accuracy and nuance for simplicity of execution.


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## Anne Victory (Jul 29, 2010)

Snow-white and pitch-black are actually hyphenated per Merriam-Webster and not due to Chicago's hyphenation rules, just as an FYI, which means they're always hyphenated if used as adjectives, regardless of placement, so probably not the best examples in this debate. ;-)

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk


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## unkownwriter (Jun 22, 2011)

I agree with Julie (all her posts above), though I've fallen into the bad habit of not using the hyphen correctly. And I totally mess up on the "blonde" versus "blond" thing. Bad me. As a counterpoint, I still use the apostrophe correctly! I get points for that, right?


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## KMpress (Dec 8, 2021)

Guest said:


> While I agree that it is important to write to the norms of one's genre, there is a difference between using simple grammar and deliberately writing something wrong because one caters to semi-illiterate readers. Just as writers should challenge themselves to improve their craft, reading is the best way to encourage people to improve their comprehension. You do your readers a disservice by allowing them to wallow in poor communication skills. Aren't you simply reinforcing their ignorance?
> 
> This is something that hits close to home for me. I have young relatives who read voraciously, but have NO reading comprehension. They read a book a day, but can't follow written instructions or read a newspaper article or construct a cohesive paragraph. And it wasn't until I picked up a few of their books and realized how horribly written they were that it made sense. I'm not talking about bad plots. I mean horrendous sentence construction. Run on sentences. Jumping between past and present tense not for stylist reasons but because it is clear the author doesn't know the difference between present and past tense. We've become so obsessed with getting kids to read ANYTHING that we don't realize that a diet of "junk food" on the brain has the same impact as a diet of junk food on the body.
> 
> I'm not saying things should be edited to the standards of a literary opus. But they should be at a minimum grammatically sound. If for no other reason than to not contribute to the general dumbing down of people.


I absolutely LOVE this response!. I was just telling my wife the other night not to dumb down her writing just so that readers won't have to look words up.


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## jb1111 (Apr 6, 2018)

KMpress said:


> I absolutely LOVE this response!. I was just telling my wife the other night not to dumb down her writing just so that readers won't have to look words up.


There's a difference between deliberately 'dumbing down' and writing in a style that is easy to read for the majority of potential readers out there, many of whom may not be grad school educated.

I probably write in 13th grade English. I keep it literate, but simple enough to make it an easy read. There's a balance. I don't think a reader should need a dictionary or thesaurus to read a genre fiction novel. But a few words here or there that are unusual are probably okay.


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