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Old 08-01-2013, 05:18 PM   #6
Gregg Bell
Gregg Bell
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G.M.

Agree with Penforhire. (Except that I don't think the sentence is awkward.) The meaning of your sentence is absolutely clear. Technically you'd be correct to add the hyphens, but modern usage does not tend to use hyphens in that sort of situation unless the meaning is in jeopardy. (And it just looks clunky as hell if you do use them. I suppose, if you're writing for grammarians you could use them. If for normal people, no.) Remember, good writing is about effectively communicating, and you've done that with your original sentence. Plus, when you start messing with the original "organic" sentence, you rarely improve upon it.

The following quotes are from "Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft" by Janet Burroway.

"A well-written sentence normally needs very little interior punctuation."

"Punctuation is needed only to communicate a meaning not explicitly communicated by word symbols."

"Common sense should tell you that when the meaning of your words cannot be mistaken you can dispense with some punctuation marks."
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