Creative Use of Hyphenation

There are several hyphenated phrases in the New York Times op-ed. Here is a list, with their frequency as judged by the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Many are common hyphenated phrases, but others are unusual.

near-ceaseless 0
mass-marketing 20
anti-trade 35
two-track 132
ill-informed 178
anti-democratic 229
half-baked 242
like-minded 1079
so-called 19081

This list, in and of itself, does not prove authorship. The number of hyphenated phrases isn't that unusual and their uniqueness isn't either. However, it does suggest a certain stylistic tendency not found in most writers. In many cases, Rosen will use a hyphen where another writer would simply put a space.

I want to highlight the use of "so-called" from the op-ed which also appears extremely regularly in Rosen's writing. It is a very common phrase, as the table above shows, but it is still noteworthy since he uses it so often. Here is the example from the op-ed:

This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. 

Two other uses of hyphens, "near-ceaseless" and "mass-marketing" strike me as noteworthy. Most people would not use hyphens in these cases, and I also don't believe that a copy editor would insert them. So it seems likely that the author wrote them this way initially and they were published as-is. 

There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,”

Jeffrey A. Rosen does tend to make very creative use of hyphens in his other writing, often in a playful manner. It is a strong stylistic tendency as I will demonstrate below.

In this article, Rosen makes creative, almost-humorous use of hyphens. The Hill - Fishing for a reason to regulate

Respondents were also asked how much they might imagine paying to improve the “condition of aquatic ecosystems” from “48 percent pristine” to “50 percent pristine” — for those who know what a 2 percent increase in pristine-ness looks like.

These sponsor-a-fish questions suggested that a couple bucks could save millions of tiny fish

The Hill - President needs to get serious about spending cuts is more serious in tone, but it uses a hyphenated phrase "first-term" extensively. Rosen tends to hyphenate a phrase when using it to modify a noun. This is not an unusual usage, but it is distinctive of his style. He does it in the op-ed:  "two-track presidency" and "like-minded nations". This article also includes an example of "so-called":


so-called “fiscal cliff”
Democrat-controlled Senate
first-term level
first-term spending hike

This op-ed, written in support of Rosen's patron Senator Rob Portman, has some novel hyphenated usages as well. Cincinnati Enquirer - Rein on Federal Regulations will only benefit economy

building economic reality-checks into the process
consistent use of a cost-benefit standard
Portman-Pryor plan
a billion-dollar impact 

This article has fewer hyphens, but it has another use of so-called followed by a scare quote, as shown above. The Hill - Obama's spending ideas unbalanced:

so-called “grand bargain” 
trillion-dollar spending increases

In his amicus brief to the supreme court, Rosen uses some aggressive hyphens (a Google search doesn't show these as commonly hyphenated phrases) as well as "so-called" in the same manner as it was used in the op-ed:

so-called "false" political speech
protection of the very free-expression rights
this erroneous threat-of-future-injury standard
also a cramped "threat-of-harm" analysis

In Rosen's article for National Affairs there are many examples of exuberant hyphenation, including another two examples of "so-called" and an example of "like-minded" which also appears in the op-ed:

Perhaps that is because so-called "command and control" requirements
spending programs, taxes, and so-called "tax expenditures"
presumably like-minded appointees
changes to federal-agency rulemaking
issue once-unthinkable new rules
impacts of regulatory-policy decisions
each regulatory-agency head
two EPA greenhouse-gas regulations
joint legislative-executive budget process


It's also interesting to note that Rosen used the phrase "so-called [SCARE QUOTE TERM]" in his spoken response to a question at his confirmation hearing:

The administration campaigned on a reordering of priorities, and at least the way I perceive it, the so-called ``skinny budget'' that was released is sending the message about some reordered priorities

This prepared statement to a House committee by Rosen uses hyphens extensively, often in common legal usage, but also often in cases where many writers would not include a hyphen. Note the "so-called":

the so-called Bumpers Amendment
now-Justice Elena Kagan
now-revoked Executive Order
well-settled within the Executive Branch
all-too-real concern
little effect on the decision-making process


Rosen's amicus brief for the Chamber of Commerce is especially hyphen-heavy. Note "three-element list" which is similar to "two-track presidency" from the op-ed and "first-term spending hike" referenced above:

The legislative history of Sarbanes-Oxley confirms that Congress’s evidence-preservation objective was always confined to financial records.

Section 1519’s penalty-enhancing purpose

the interpretation of “tangible objects” as a reference to the ever-expanding universe of devices that store electronic records.

interpretation of the statute have used Section 1519 to reach an array of evidence-destroying

The government’s inability to identify courts outside the Eleventh Circuit that construe Section 1519 to reach non-record-keeping contraband is telling. conduct

Sarbanes-Oxley can accomplish its investor-protection purpose without becoming another all-purpose anti-spoliation statute.

“tangible object” — is the final item in a three-element list