Question

Rewrite the sentences so that they are properly punctuated according to the rules for hyphen usage. As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. (Bret Harte, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat") Next, he gathered dry grasses and tiny twigs from the high water flotsam. (Jack London, "To Build a Fire") For a week last September, migrating red winged blackbirds were feeding heavily down by the creek at the back of the house. (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) They lived in a forlorn looking house that stood alone, and had an air of starvation. (Washington Irving, "The Devil and Tom Walker") [She] had kindled the callow fancy of the most idle and shiftless of all the village lads, and had conceived for this Howard Carpenter one of those absurd and extravagant passions which a handsome country boy of twenty one sometimes inspires in a plain, angular, spectacled woman of thirty. (Willa Cather, "A Wagner Matinee")

Answer 1

1. Numbers from 21 and 99 are hyphenated.

2. "High-water flotsam" is an example of a hyphenated compound modifier.

3."Red-winged blackbirds" is an example of a hyphenated compound modifier.

4."Forlorn-looking house" is an example of a hyphenated compound modifier.

5. Numbers between 21 and 99 are hyphenated.

Answer 2

 As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. (Bret Harte, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat") Next, he gathered dry grasses and tiny twigs from the high water flotsam. (Jack London, "To Build a Fire") For a week last September, migrating red-winged blackbirds were feeding heavily down by the creek at the back of the house. (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek) They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an air of starvation. (Washington Irving, "The Devil and Tom Walker") [She] had kindled the callow fancy of the most idle and shiftless of all the village lads, and had conceived for this Howard Carpenter one of those absurd and extravagant passions which a handsome country boy of twenty one sometimes inspires in a plain, angular, spectacled woman of thirty. (Willa Cather, "A Wagner Matinee")