When is it appropriate to use the hyphen?
The places where it does matter are summarized in the Oxford Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage (2004), the most important being
- to make clear the unifying of the sense in compound expressions such as punch-drunk, cost-benefit analysis, or weight-carrying, or compounds in attributive use (that is, in front of the noun), as in an up-to-date list or the well-known performer;
- to join a prefix to a proper name (e.g. anti-Darwinian);
- to avoid misunderstanding by distinguishing phrases such as twenty-odd people and twenty odd people, or a third-world conflict and a third world conflict;
- to clarify the use of a prefix, as in recovering from an illness and re-covering an umbrella;
- to clarify compounds with similar adjacent sounds, such as sword-dance, co-opt, tool-like.
- to represent the use of a common element in a list of compounds, such as four-, six-, and eight-legged animals.
- in dividing a word across a line-break. Guidance on word division is given in reference books such as the Oxford Colour Spelling Dictionary (1996).
For the sake of brevity, I will temporarily defer this contention to one of my heroes (William Safire):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10wwln-safire-t.html
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