The All-Important Hyphen

Dear Readers,
   As you know, I do a lot of reading.  I can't tell you how many times I have seen a word spelled without a hyphen when it is needed.  How do we know when it's needed?  According to Gavin and Sabin's Reference Manual for Stenographers and Typists, Fourth Edition, these are the rules:
    A.  When expressing time in hours and minutes without a.m., p.m., or o'clock. . .
           a hyphen is used between hours and minutes (seven-thirty) but not if the minutes
           must be hyphenated (seven thirty-five).
    B.  Also, hyphenate spelled-out numbers between 21 and 99 whether they stand alone
          (twenty-five) or as part of a number over 100 (three hundred ninety-seven).
So I thought I would offer my examples in both cases, starting with A.

Example:  In John Grisham's book The Litigators, he writes that attorney David Zinc has run out on his firm, choosing to spend the day in a local bar.  His secretary calls him and asks, "David, where are you?  It's already eight thirty."  *No hyphen for the time.

Example:  The Liar, the Bitch and the Wardrobe by Allie Kingsley has protagonist Lucy Butler saying, "I picked up my cell phone and, glancing at the time, was surprised to see it was
 eight thirty."  *Wow, same time, same lack of hyphen.  Are they in cahoots?

Example:  Catherine Clark writes in her novel Maine Squeeze, "When we pulled up in front of the house it was getting close to seven thirty and dusk was falling." 

Example:  While reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, I was surprised to see that twice she wrote the time correctly with a hyphen and once she didn't.  "Checked Gyuri's watch:
 six-twenty ..."  Then, "At about three thirty in the afternoon ..."  And finally, "Four-fifteen p.m."
  *I don't understand the deviation.

On the plus side, many authors do spell the time correctly.  Keep reading.

Example:  In The Wedding Girl by Madeleine Wickham, titular character Milly Havill is about to marry Simon Pinnacle.  She, her parents and Simon have planned to dine with Simon's father, a wealthy businessman.  "It was nine-thirty before Harry Pinnacle strode into the room."  
Later, Milly has plans to meet with the wedding photographer.  "At ten-thirty, Alexander appeared at the door of the drawing room."  *A double bravo for Ms. Wickham.

Example:  Sophie Kinsella wrote in her novel I've Got Your Number, "By the time I'm leaving for work at eight-forty ..."  *An insider note:  Sophie Kinsella and Madeleine Wickham are one and the same person.  No wonder they both write the time out correctly.

Example:  Once Upon a Secret is Mimi Alford's true story of her affair with President Kennedy.
She writes that Dave Powers, "first friend" of the president, called "asking if I would like to meet everybody after work at five-thirty ..."

Example:  I love this paragraph in Janet Evanovich's book Naughty Neighbor where she describes upstairs neighbor Pete saying to downstairs neighbor Louisa, "Lady, I could set my clock by you.  At five-thirty your alarm goes off ... At six-thirty there's more door slamming ... You leave precisely at seven-thirty every weekday morning."   And later on she writes, "She glumly looked at the clock on the wall.  Three-fifteen."  *A quadruple bravo for Ms. Evanovich.

Example:  Danielle Steele writes in her novel The Sins of the Mother, "It was three-thirty in the morning, and the party was still going strong when they left the nightclub."

Final example for time:  In The Last Juror by John Grisham, he writes, "Nobody sleeps till nine-thirty in Clanton."  *This is noteworthy because he did not use a hyphen in his novel I mentioned above.  Perhaps he used a different editor.

Now on to topic B.

Example:  Watching the TV show "The Killing," we see the continuing investigation of the murder of Rosie Larsen.  Each episode starts with the number of the days the investigation has been going on.  DAY TWENTY ONE     *No hyphen to write out a number??

Example:  I spotted this storefront sign in Sherman Oaks:  Twenty four *They sell watches.  You'd think they would know how to spell out numbers.

Example:  On an episode of "CSI:  NY,"  crime scene investigator Adam is reading the text message of a suspect in a high school student's murder.  The message is an algebra word problem.  "Fred goes to the video store on Broadway.  He buys three videos for twenty five dollars."  *I guess since it's a math problem and not an English one, spelling isn't important.

I did find several examples where the hyphen was used correctly with numbers.  Here they are:

Example:  Lois Wyse wrote Women Make the Best Friends.  In the chapter describing Polly who hates celebrating her birthday, she wrote, "She managed to avoid a party for her sixtieth and another for her sixty-fifth ... But seventy-five was a diamond jubilee."  *Good work using the hyphen for both an ordinal and a cardinal number!

Example:  Catherine Clark writes in her novel Maine Squeeze, "My uncle once went on a ten-minute tirade about how the side salad was too small to cost a dollar ninety-nine."

Example:  In Under the Dome by Stephen King, he writes, "And Dougie Twitchell happened to be her baby brother, who even at the age of thirty-nine must be protected from the evil facts of life."
And later on, "The missile's speed dropped from thirty-five hundred miles an hour to eighteen hundred and fifty as it descended."  *Thank you, Mr. King.

I'm sure that most people know how to spell a number with a hyphen so it is shocking to me to read otherwise.  However, I can still enjoy the book I am reading and I hope you enjoy reading my blog.
A special "Thank You" to D.C. for her help.