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When a compound word is hyphenated, should a second hyphen be added at the beginning of the next line? And what is the case for compound words connected by a dash instead of a hyphen?

Is any of the following correct, or is the proper way different?

Note: My primary interest is English. However, this could be language dependent and if there are differences, I'd like to know about them.

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3 Answers 3

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c) is the right way the rest simply doesn't exist check http://www.bestessays.com/splitting_words_guide.php

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  • It may be worth noting that it may sometimes be advantageous to use a non-breaking hyphen. For example, if one wishes to cover something again, a line break after "re-" could cause what should be a hyphenated "re-cover" to read as a non-hyphenated "recover". Use of a non-breaking hyphen might cause it to get broken as "re-cov- ... er" but that would ensure that the hyphen after "re-" was seen as a "real" hyphen.
    – supercat
    Commented Aug 17, 2014 at 19:34
  • Please include any relevant information from this link in the answer body itself just in case the site goes down or the content changes
    – Zach Saucier
    Commented Feb 4, 2016 at 16:57
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I've never see anyone do a) or b) ... c) is the way to go. I don't really have a lot of hard evidence to back it up, other than I've never seen the alternatives and InDesign doesn't do it.

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My bet would be that B and C might be either an older tradition or some Central European (German/Austrian) custom. I am Croatian and I found recently that newest orthography manual says this is how it is done in my language, although I don't remember that I've ever seen it in practice. Since many orthographic rules in Croatian were set way back when we where part of Austria-Hungary, I guess this is one of them.

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