Hyphens - correct usage of?

Question

"We can do this face to face..." and
"A face-to-face meeting." Am I correct both times here?

Answer 1

I think you're correct in both cases. It's a complicated issue.

Generally, hyphens are used in modifiers to indicate that a modifier modifies a modifier, not the noun. So, in the case of "face-to-face meeting", you are using hyphens to indicate that the three hyphenated words go together, and "to", for example, does not modify "meeting". In the first sentence, the phrase in question is not acting as a modifier, so no hyphens are necessary.

These days, hyphens are falling out of fashion, so you see them less and less. I think this is probably, in large part, due to the fact that nobody really knows how to use them. Some very common phrases that were previously hyphenated are now not hyphenated in many places, like "high school dance". I guess the hyphen isn't really necessary in a phrase like this anyway, because people understand that you're talking about a dance at a high school and not a dance that is on drugs or something.

There's an excellent treatment of hyphens in the book "Woe is I" by Patricia T. O'Conner. However, I suspect that if you have enough hyphen knowledge to write the two sentences above, you're probably okay just continuing to do what you've been doing, and no one will notice, because they don't know how to use hyphens either.

Answer 2

I would hyphenate both examples. In both cases, the expression is used as a single word. Try substituting another word in the first case (We can do this quickly...secretly...quietly) - "face-to-face" also behaves like a single word and thus should be connected by hyphens.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

Answer 3

Face to face is correct..hyphen is not usually used between the words..

Answer 4

yes because ftf in case 1 is used as a predicate nominateve in case 2 it is used a sigle word adjective