My only regret is that I didn't think of the line "Despite all its rage, it is still just a strat in a case."

Chill, man. J. was obviously having a bit of satiric fun.

Besides-I'm-getting-ready-to-release-my-signature line-of-gearwire-bald-caps-as-well-.

I don't know what J.'s feelings are, but I like the smashing pumpkins.

-B. Holland, smiling politely

Hyphens are most commonly used to break single words into parts, or to join ordinarily separate words into single words.

A definitive collection of hyphenation rules does not exist. Therefore, the writer or editor should consult a manual of style or dictionary of his or her preference, preferably for the country in which he or she is writing. The rules of style that apply to dashes and hyphens have evolved to support ease of reading in complex constructions; editors often accept deviations from them that will support, rather than hinder, ease of reading. Spaces should not be placed between a hyphen and either of the words it connects except when using a suspended hyphen (e.g. nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers—see below).

The use of the hyphen in compound nouns and verbs has, in general, been steadily declining. Compounds that might once have been hyphenated are increasingly left with spaces or are combined into one word. The sixth edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary removed the hyphens from 16,000 entries, such as fig-leaf (now fig leaf), pot-belly (now pot belly) and pigeon-hole (now pigeonhole).[1] In other countries hyphens are dropped in favor of connecting the two-word compounds. Use of the hyphen is particularly avoided by those concerned with visual cleanliness, for example writers of advertising copy, packaging labels etc.

However, a significant number of compounds are still routinely hyphenated (e.g. breast-feed, add-on (noun), get-together, Hewlett-Packard, merry-go-round). Hyphenation remains the norm in certain compound modifier constructions and, amongst some authors, with certain prefixes (see below). Hyphenation is also routinely used to avoid unsightly spacing in justified texts (for example, in newspaper columns).