The Hyphen

The hyphen ( - ) is a punctuation mark that is used to join words or to seperate syllables.

For example:

• This is my mother-in-law.
• One-fifth of the population was hit by famine.
• The process of de-Stalinisation is almost over in this country.
• De-con-struc-tion
   

The hyphen is often confused with the dash, which is longer and has a completely different function.

The guidelines how to use the hyphen can be found here.