Hi all,

I was reading a book yesterday and there was a lot of use of hyphens. When are hyphens used? Just as a background the hyphens in this case were not used for splitting a word or completing a word. It was used as punctuations.

thanks

here are two resources that you can consult:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_hyphen.html
http://www.nyu.edu/classes/copyXediting/Hyphens.html

in general, for questions as general and wide-ranging as this one, the collective wisdom of the internet will be able to give much more complete answers than we can.

if there are specific contexts in which you don't understand the use of the hyphen, though, feel free to post them here.

have fun!