How’s Your (Hyperlocal) (Hyper-local) (Hyper Local) IQ?
by: Nicole Lyons, on Jun 12, 2013 in About
To hyphenate or not to hyphenate: that is the question. (Or is it?)
In celebration of the the AP Style Guide having finally condensed ‘Web-site’ into a single word, we thought it would be interesting to more thoroughly explore the grammatically correct (as opposed to popular) way to spell hyperlocal/hyper-local/hyper local. Because if you’ve seen the term once, you’ve most likely seen it spelled all three ways.
SPOILER ALERT: the correct answer might surprise you!
So, which do you think is the correct way to spell hyperlocal?
a) hyper local
b) hyperlocal
c) hyper-local
d) both b and c
(scroll down for the answer)
The answer is “d.” When it comes to the grammatically correct spelling of hyperlocal, because the ‘hyper’ is a prefix to ‘local,’ you can spell it with (hyper-local) or without (hyperlocal) the hyphen.
For those of you who are curious, spelling it as 2 separate words (hyper local) turns each word a a standalone adjective. As an adjective, ‘hyper’ means something completely different: it relates to temperament and/or an emotion. Whether it is meant to describe ‘local’ or whatever noun follows in a sentence, i.e. ‘publishing,’ the use of ‘hyper’ as an adjective instead of a prefix is both grammatically and contextually incorrect.
And, there you have it. Consider yourself LocalYokel-ized.