The hyphen: The red headed step child and over the top neglected, worthiness seeking, punctilious minded punctuation mark.

Bet you had trouble reading that title, huh? Yeah....and why? Because I said F-you to the hyphen in it (not "F you"), just like a lot of people are doing these days.

Let's try again.
The hyphen: The red-headed step-child and over-the-top neglected, worthiness-seeking, punctilious-minded punctuation mark.

Look at what a nice sentence that is and OH BY THE WAY, MY FINGERS DIDN'T FALL OFF TYPING IT.

I'm not going to write for very long about this, as there is a great, short book covering this punctuation rant and much more, but really....why is the hyphen disappearing from our writing? I blame it on marketers. I honestly think that marketers think that the inclusion of hyphens in signage will somehow confuse and bewilder we poor consumers, frightening us away from packages and offerings that seem to "uppity" about punctuation. A "Double Stuffed Burrito" is a kick-ass meal, but a "double-stuffed burrito" takes itself way too seriously and may cause diarrhea and probably has salmonella. A "high definition" TV is clearer than anything you can imagine, but a "high-definition" TV only shows NOVA and C-Span. Look at the cover of the book linked above. The cover reads, "The Zero Tolerance Approach..." I would bet anything, based on the author's tone, that this decision was made by the publisher and she was infuriated when it came out naked of hyphen.

I'm not saying this just for the sake of following rules, but the hyphen helps things make sense...it bundles adjectives the way they are supposed to be combined, making it clear what they are saying about the noun being modified. So don't be afraid to stick a hyphen in there where it should be! We can turn the tide back to the way of the proper. I'm not asking you to get arrested like these guys, but just don't neglect it!