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I'm currently asking myself if it is possible to use "-" for abbreviation in a listing in a sentence to emphasize the togetherness of the previous words and the word in the end, even if they are two separate words or do not contain a hyphen.

Example:

(...) baby-, owner- and product names.

Background: I would not like to harm the spelling of i.e. "product names" because it is spelled this way in a certain context. However i would like to make it clear that not "babies" or "owner" but "baby names" and "owner names" are meant.

Thank you,

user68596
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  • No, suspended hyphens are only used for words that already are hyphenated. "Baby, owner, and product names" is not really ambiguous. As you hint at yourself, you would only really get the other meaning by saying "babies, owners, and product names", i.e. by using the plural throughout. – RegDwigнt Mar 12 '14 at 10:25
  • In the circumstances, if you think there is likely to be confusion, it is better to use a hyphen. Quotation marks, in English, are not normally used for this purpose.

    The search-engine requirement of inverted commas around text to be treated as one entry, may have encouraged people to think it is a convention of the English language. It is not!

     – WS2 Mar 12 '14 at 10:25
  • @WS2: changed the title. – user68596 Mar 12 '14 at 10:42

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