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How would you suggest using a forward slash (/) between multi-word phrases? Should a slash be even used between multi-word phrases?

For example -

Following are the open/in progress issues.

or

Following are the open/ in progress issues.

or

Following are the open/in-progress issues.

P.S. - The example sentence is just for explaining the problem, I'm not necessarily looking for an alternate way to put the same point forward.

Phi_1.618
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  • google dude http://www.grammarly.com/handbook/punctuation/other-punctuation-marks/4/slash/ – Max Williams Mar 15 '16 at 09:03
  • @MaxWilliams Yeah, that was one of the articles I read before posting this question. Unfortunately, it doesn't address this use-case. – Phi_1.618 Mar 15 '16 at 09:16
  • OIC. Well you should keep the hyphen in "in-progress" because otherwise it looks like you are talking about two options for "progress" - "open" or "in", as if you were saying "Following are the open-progress/in-progress issues", which obviously isn't correct. I don't think there is a special rule for hyphenated words when using a slash. So, option C is correct. – Max Williams Mar 15 '16 at 09:29
  • Cool. Yeah, that makes sense. – Phi_1.618 Mar 15 '16 at 09:35
  • I feel like you are mixing 2 questions. 1) The placement of spaces around slash when listing multi-word options. 2) Multi-word adjectives should always have a hyphen, when together with a noun so as to distinguish the sentences "in progress-issues" from "in-progress issues". Thus, the multi-word rule you wish to learn, does not apply to any of your examples, the first two being simply wrong./ The true answer to the first question, I am interested in myself. Personally, I use a space before and after the hyphen when dealing with multi-word options, and only a single space after for line breaks. – Born2Smile Mar 15 '16 at 12:09
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    It's a shame this question was marked as a duplicate when it is very obviously not. The linked question is VERY general in just asking about use cases for slash punctuation. Unless I'm missing something, neither the linked question nor any of its answers address question/use-case asked here (ie. connecting multi-word phrases). The logic seems to be that this question falls under the category "slash used as connector" thus it's a dupe, but that seems extremely reductive to me. @choster or someone with the ability to reopen, please consider doing so. – Steve Ladavich Aug 17 '16 at 17:10
  • @SteveLadavich: Yes, I agree. This use-case is different. When using a slash character, I've been using a hyphen to denote multi-word phrases, though. – Phi_1.618 Aug 18 '16 at 09:09
  • should not have been closed but I can't vote to reopen – Dave Cousineau Dec 22 '19 at 17:19
  • As has already been pointed out, the question shouldn't have been closed, but essentially the same question has been asked and answered more recently: How to use a slash to describe two options, one of which is made up of two or more words? – jsw29 Oct 10 '20 at 15:39

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