Hyphen after "too", "so" and "very"?
Asked by
Theu (
1)
December 24th, 2010
Do the words “too”, “so” and “very” take a hyphen after them? for instance: “My daughter is a so-smart girl” or “My daughter is a so smart girl”? “A too-long story” or “A too long story”? “A very-great work” or “A very great work”?
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5 Answers
My daughter is so smart. My daughter is a very smart girl. That story was too long. Great work. Very good job.
So, no.
Why not just say “My daughter is a smart girl”? None of those sentences you posted are correct. No, there’s no hyphen after any of those words when they’re used in this way.
It’s not a matter of the word taking a hyphen.
And very would almost never be used with a hyphen: “a very great work” is fine.
The other expressions you wrote are funky and would want hyphens because you are gluing two words together to create a new adjectival phrase, which isn’t grammatically correct unless you use a hyphen. But it is something someone might say in spoken colloquial language, without realizing the grammar of what they are doing. So the hyphen would be used in that case (i.e. to be cute, or to mimic such a way of speaking but write it with grammatical clarity).
If not trying to do that, though, usually one would express those ideas differently, as papyally and lbwhite89 suggested.
“My daughter is such a smart girl.” That’s how we would say that.
There might be an occasion to speak of a too-long story. It’s awkward, but there could be a good reason to say it that way. In that case, yes, you need a hyphen.
There is no reason to hyphenate “very” in front of an adjective. That would be incorrect.
Actually, you don’t need it. It also can save your time!
For the best view and read, you can even remove those words.
You’ll create an effective sentence.
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