“Hysteria over hyphens”

Email, or e-mail? Archrival, or arch-rival? The Economist addresses “Hysteria over hyphens” and finds one thing certain:

Fortunately, this is one rule that need not drive anyone mad: a group of words used as a single modifier should be hyphenated. Any other approach to hyphenation really should receive zero tolerance.

Related posts
Bad hyphens, unhelpful abbreviations : “Every generation hyphenates the way it wants to” : Got hyphens? : The Hammacher Schlemmer crazy making hyphen shortage problem : Living on hyphens : Mr. Hyphen and e-mail : Mr. Hyphen and Mr. Faulkner : One more from Mr. Hyphen : Phrasal-adjective punctuation

[Like The Economist, I prefer e-mail to email. “Zero tolerance” is a swipe at Lynne Truss, whose best-selling and lousy book about punctuation is missing a hyphen from its subtitle: The Zero[-]Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.]