[Misc] When should hyphenation be used with numbers and units?

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Hive mind help required (a better understanding of The Use Of English Language than mine would be helpful).

• I bought 500 mL of beer
• Did it come in a 500 mL bottle, or a 500-mL bottle?
• And, indeed, was it actually 500 mL of beer or 500-mL of beer?

The reason for my request is that a publisher has randomly added hyphens or not added hyphens to various measures of chemicals, volumes, concentrations etc., in a work of mine, and I am doing my nut trying to edit the proofs, and need advice/condfimation of my understanding before I antagonize the publisher and make needless work for myself.

So.....is it that when two words, such as a number and unit, combine to form an adjective it may be OK to hyphenate (but not necessary)? And if so, should you also not hyphenate any other words that form the compound adjective? For example: 7-day week; Granny Grimble's 6-flowers-in-the-garden book; my 10-pints-of-cider nightmare; Neal Maupay's 4-goal-thriller?

For those of you who want to smirk at the ignorance of your average jobbing science academic in the UK, here are some examples of published work from a relevant publication (not mine I hasten to add), with my assessments added. I would be interested to know your views if you have insight.

• 12-h light/12-h dark cycle – this is almost correct but it should read 12-h-light/12-h-dark cycle since it is the duration of light and dark that is the cycle, shirley, not simply the length of time or it would be a 12-h cycle, which doesn’t mean anything.
• 6-Hz threshold tests – this should really be 6-Hz-threshold tests, as it is the 6 Hz threshold that is the test, not the 6 Hz.
• Supplemented with 15-mM glucose - this is simply wrong, unless all numbers and units in the article are hyphenated (and they are not)
• 200-mM NaCl - ditto
• A 12-h light cycle - this should be 12-h-light cycle (and in any case, it should be 12-h-light/12-h-dark, as noted above)
• A total 12-h period - simply wrong
• The 5 min acclimation period - this is fine by me but not if the guff above is all hyphenated in the same article!

And before anyone says each of these will be governed by 'local convention' I have countless examples and there is no consistency.

 

[monty uk]

As an engineer constantly using abbreviations for milli and mega and giga and pica I would never hyphenate. By convention and too easily confused with negatives.

 

[KZNSeagull]

I have never seen hyphens used and would not normally expect a space between the amount and the unit either (eg 500ml). I have always assumed that this is the convention.

 

[BN9 BHA]

What I see when reading the opening post.

 

[Wozza]

I have never seen hyphens used and would not normally expect a space between the amount and the unit either (eg 500ml). I have always assumed that this is the convention.

Indeed.

500ml
12v
9hr

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

No hyphen. No capital on the 'L' either. Thank me later H

 

[beorhthelm]

looks like something that should be dictated by a style guide, or scientific-paper-convention, rather than the hive mind of a football forum.

your beer comes in 500ml, sometimes 500 ml, sized bottles in normal English. so normal English language conventions arent going to help much.

 

[vegster]

You have gone wrong right from the start, 500ml of beer simply isn't enough.

 

[B-right-on]

View attachment 143293

What I see when reading the opening post.

Yep, I agree. I don't see the use of hyphens either

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

As a QS no hyphens between quantities and units of measurement.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

looks like something that should be dictated by a style guide, or scientific-paper-convention, rather than the hive mind of a football forum.

your beer comes in 500ml, sometimes 500 ml, sized bottles in normal English. so normal English language conventions arent going to help much.

Indeed. And the buggers don't have one that covers this, evidently. Even if they did they would be in breach of their own rules (which wouldn't be the first time)

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

No hyphen. No capital on the 'L' either. Thank me later H

Cheers.

Some US publishers request use of L, but this is not an SI rule: "Originally, the only symbol for the litre was l (lowercase letter L), following the SI convention that only those unit symbols that abbreviate the name of a person start with a capital letter. In many English-speaking countries, however, the most common shape of a handwritten Arabic digit 1 is just a vertical stroke; that is, it lacks the upstroke added in many other cultures. Therefore, the digit "1" may easily be confused with the letter "l". In some computer typefaces, the two characters are barely distinguishable. As a result, L (uppercase letter L) was adopted by the CIPM as an alternative symbol for litre in 1979. The United States National Institute of Standards and Technology now recommends the use of the uppercase letter L,[11] a practice that is also widely followed in Canada and Australia. In these countries, the symbol L is also used with prefixes, as in mL and μL, instead of the traditional ml and μl used in Europe. In the UK and Ireland, as well as the rest of Europe, lowercase l is used with prefixes, though whole litres are often written in full (so, "750 ml" on a wine bottle, but often "1 litre" on a juice carton)."

 

[Brok]

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I have never seen hyphens used and would not normally expect a space between the amount and the unit either (eg 500ml). I have always assumed that this is the convention.

Cheers. Generally in biological science literature there seems to be a space between a number and a unit.

This is the case for American Journal of Physiology (except for % values where there is no space): https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpcell.00544.2020

Exactly the same for J Physiol (a British journal, and they use L for litre): https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP281800

I am pleased that nobody so far thinks these sodding hyphens are a good idea, though.

I have some more weapons to use in my inevitable row with the publisher....

 

[Is it PotG?]

Life is too short, honestly.

 

[Seagull58]

No hyphens and no spaces between the numbers and the units.
My dear old dad would have gone apoplectic seeing hyphens. He embarked on a long and, I believe, ultimately successful letter-writing (correct use of hyphen) campaign to stop the BBC presenters describing decimal numbers such as 76.85 as "seventy-six point eighty-five" when the correct phrasing is "seventy-six point eight five".

 

[monty uk]

You have gone wrong right from the start, 500ml of beer simply isn't enough.

Quite.

What you need is 500Ml.

 

[sydney]

i had a hypen in my garden once .....killed my cat the ****...!!

 

[Eric the meek]

Cheers. Generally in biological science literature there seems to be a space between a number and a unit.

This is the case for American Journal of Physiology (except for % values where there is no space): https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/ajpcell.00544.2020

Exactly the same for J Physiol (a British journal, and they use L for litre): https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP281800

I am pleased that nobody so far thinks these sodding hyphens are a good idea, though.

I have some more weapons to use in my inevitable row with the publisher....

Sorry if I'm a bit late to this party.

My first and only port of call would be the IEEE.org.

I typed in 'hyphen between number and unit of measurement', and got this:

https://standards.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-standards/standards/web/governance/revcom/scc14.pdf

Do a search on 'hyphen', and you will find the rules where it is referenced.

The bottom line is that hyphens are not allowed in normal circumstances. Your premise was quite correct. (I would have expected nothing less from you).

 

[McTavish]

Although it's American I found this very clear and useful for dealing with SI units. https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html

No hyphens and a gap between number and unit.

The difficulty that HWT is having is that h (hour) is not an SI unit and so the same rules don't apply and it is possible that 12-h is the convention used to indicate 12 hours where technically 43,200 s could be used.