I am continuing my personal grammar and usage review and sharing my cheat sheet with you. Today I am tackling the letter B. In case you missed the original post in this series, I adhere to AP style.
As a grant writer, I frequently write about a program director’s credentials, so it is a good reminder for me that it is a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science or a bachelor’s degree or just a bachelor’s.
Biannual vs biennial: Biannual means twice a year and is synonymous with semiannual. Biennial means every two years.
Biweekly vs semiweekly: Biweekly means every other week. Semiweekly means twice a week.
Grant writers also must frequently reference their board, board of directors or board of trustees – always lowercase.
A boy is a boy until his 18th birthday; after that he is a man or young man.
Brand-new (always with a hyphen).
The prefix “by” almost always does not require a hyphen: bypass, bylaws, byproduct
The spelling of many words depends on which part of speech it is being used as. Sometimes words will need a hyphen, other times not. A few examples of this with words beginning with the letter b:
Break-in and breakup are nouns, but break in and break up are verbs. “There was a break-in at the institution.” “He plans to break in the institution tonight.” Similarly, “That couple is headed for a breakup,” but “He plans to break up with her tonight.”
So, I now digress to the very complicated and challenging hyphen. Hyphens might not sound exciting, but they are the anarchists of the grammar world. According to “The Associated Press Stylebook,” “hyphens are far from standardized … optional in most cases, a matter of taste, judgement and style sense.” The stylebook follows that statement with a page of rules related to hyphens.
The hyphen’s most important role is to limit confusion. For example, if you are writing about small-business owners, unless you mean tiny people who own businesses, use the hyphen. Or recreation vs re-creation – a park is for recreation but you attend a re-creation of the Cinderella story.
Use hyphens in words when the vowels would be duplicated or the consonants tripled: pre-engineered and bell-like.
AP style also requires hyphens to designate dual heritage: Italian-American, except when you refer to a French Canadian or a Latin American.
Two or more words used as a single concept before a noun require a hyphen, unless one of those words is “very” or an adverb that ends in “ly,” which never get a hyphen: We had a very good time at the party. These rules about hyphens are not easily remembered rules. She has a full-time job researching hyphens. He was a well-known writer with little knowledge about hyphens. Here is the tricky part: using those same words after a noun means you do not hyphenate, unless the verb is a form of “to be”: She works full time but he is well-known.
Here is my best advice related to hyphens: when in doubt, check the dictionary, but be aware of whether you are using the word in question as a noun, verb, adjective or adverb. If your story is clear and easy to understand without a hyphen, it is likely no one will miss the trickiest of punctuation marks.
