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So the phrase "anti-money laundering" has an obvious meaning, referring to something or some process that acts against the laundering of money. However, I find the use of the hyphen slightly confusing. Lets try another example:

"anti-gravity modulation"

Is this something that acts against the modulation of gravity, or is it the modulation of anti-gravity (as in: my anti-gravity boots keep me stable because they use anti-gravity modulation).

Does this just come down to context or am I using incorrect grammar (or am I just confused)?

Ben
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    It's usually hyphenated anti-money laundering because money laundering is an established non-hyphenated two-word term, so it would be odd to suddenly introduce a hyphen there. By the same token, there's no such thing as lock brakes (hyphenated or not), so we don't slip a hyphen in there just because we want to refer to anti-lock brakes. – FumbleFingers Jul 17 '14 at 15:24
  • Note that in speech, you would use stress to disambiguate this situation. – tchrist Jul 17 '14 at 15:25
  • I think it would be more correctly written 'anti-money-laundering' as in 'The current anti-money-laundering regulations require rigorous proof of identity when bank accounts are opened'. – WS2 Jul 17 '14 at 15:25
  • @FumbleFingers But if 'money laundering' is used as a pre-positioned adjective you would have to employ a hyphen, wouldn't you? And how would you use 'anti-money-laundering' other than as a pre-positioned adjective? – WS2 Jul 17 '14 at 15:28
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    In a quick check on the internet, I've found the three variants (for the attributive usage) anti money laundering, anti-money laundering and anti-money-laundering. One could argue that 'money laundering' is such a well-known collocation that it doesn't need a hyphen, while 'anti', being a bound lexeme, does. So the variant you cite gets my vote. However, anti-gravity is a compound, so the hyphen isn't readily omissible. If one chooses the allowed solid form, the ambiguity is resolved: antigravity modulation. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 17 '14 at 15:31
  • ... If the alternative were needed (I'm not sure it makes sense), anti-(gravity modulation) would work, though some will cry out that you have to have 17 different types of dashes and hyphens to hand for cases like this. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 17 '14 at 15:32
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    @EdwinAshworth You have only one dash for this: the EN DASH, which can be used instead of a hyphen to separate a prefix from an open or hyphenated compound. For (anti-abortion) legislation I think anyone would prefer antiabortion legislation, although for someone who is anti-(abortion legislation), the anti–abortion legislation or anti–abortion-legislation forms which are sometimes recommended are, as I have said before, not especially satisfying. My general recommendation is to use only has much decoration as is needed to disambiguate. Modern trends seem to use too many hyphens. – tchrist Jul 17 '14 at 15:45
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    @WS2: Nobody *has* to put a hyphen in two-word pre-positioned adjective usages - we usually do it to improve legibility, is all. Apparently writers in general are about 50-50 split on this particular one. I think thsat's because half of them think like you that there's a "rule" in play here. – FumbleFingers Jul 17 '14 at 15:48
  • @FumbleFingers as an engineer I have seen brakes that lock after being turned on (similar to the hand-break in a car). Are you saying I can't call them Lock Brakes? – Ben Jul 17 '14 at 15:54
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    @Ben: I suppose you could. But I'd think more likely they'd be called *locking brakes* if you wanted to market them. – FumbleFingers Jul 17 '14 at 15:58
  • @FumbleFingers yes that would be a better name. So as a non-language specialist, or should that be non language-specialist ;-) this all comes down to context and a working knowledge of which words usually fit together, is that right? – Ben Jul 17 '14 at 16:02
  • @Ben: That's a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't example for me. Interestingly, of the four instances in Google Books for "a non language specialist" two only include the first hyphen, and the other two go for broke. – FumbleFingers Jul 17 '14 at 16:10
  • Pertinent xkcd: http://xkcd.com/37/ – Kevin Workman Jul 17 '14 at 17:16
  • @tchrist (Real writing not having been banned yet) I'm afraid that my en dash can be confused with my tilde. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 17 '14 at 20:36

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