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Hyphenated words

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AngofWords View Drop Down
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    Posted: 15 Jul 2018 at 9:59am
Hello! I'm extremely close to the max word count and I realized that my program (Libre Office) counts hyphenated words as one word. I know others may count them as two, and I'd hate to be disqualified over something so trivial. Can you let me know how they are counted here?

Thanks!

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cosima Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 Jul 2018 at 3:23pm
This is a great question--I was wondering the same thing. Decided to err on the side of caution.

I'd love to know the answer!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote wordnerd30 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Jul 2018 at 11:21pm
This is an excellent question and I would love to hear other opinions. I can't guess how the judges will interpret things. I use Microsoft Word and it counts hyphenated words as one. 

I can only give you my personal interpretation, which is not to be taken as a definitive answer. If you hyphenate a word to be used as an adjective describing a noun, you are creating a single unit of expression. Let me try to give an example off the top of my head. She refused to swim in the shark-infested ocean.

"Shark-infested" is now a single adjective describing a noun (the ocean). 

Here is what the AP Style Guide has to say on the subject: "Hyphens join words together and should be used to help form a single idea from two words or avoid ambiguity in your writing." 

Hopefully, you get more answers to your excellent question. 





Edited by wordnerd30 - 21 Jul 2018 at 2:43am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jdadams1 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Jul 2018 at 11:27pm
Oh, if they count hyphenated modifiers as two separate words, then I'm definitely over my word limit. I was trained in AP Style for many years, so it is second nature for me to hyphenate compound modifiers. (I think it looks strange when I see them not hyphenated.)

Two separate word counters said that my piece was (barely) under the word maximum -- Microsoft Word and a third-party online tool I found. (The online tool said it was about six words more than Microsoft Word did, but they both came in under.)
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Poutine Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 Jul 2018 at 11:40pm
I wondered the same thing. Initially, I cut a bunch of stuff out and was under. But I found that a line I took out could go back in and I'd have exactly 1000 words. Google Doc and an online word counter put my document at 1000. But my friend put it in MS Word (after I submitted) and it came back at 1002! I have the word five-year-old which Google Doc counts as one word, but the other counter reads "year" and "old" as two additional words.

Anyway, moral of the story is when they say 1000 words, I'm going to write 995...need some padding there—just in case.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Trond24 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Jul 2018 at 12:13am
One thing I noted this time around after specifically looking at it: times

8:49 p.m.
8:40p
20:49

even the 20:49 is counted as two words in gdocs. The 8:49 p.m. is four!
Open Office counts 20:49 as one word. Not sure how Word treats it?

It really is worth going over this with a fine-tooth comb. :-P
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Suave Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Jul 2018 at 5:28am
I have submitted right on the nose of the word count many times.  As far as I know I have never been dinged - but here on NYCM they never tell us anything to do with scoring, so who nos?  I am going to bet that they realize just how many different ways there are to count a story so they might just do it with two or three and take the one counting the least.
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