Which of the following sentences is correctly punctuated, according to our Style Guide?
A: The 3-year-old was playing loudly with his friends.
B: The three year-old was playing loudly with his friends'.
C: The three-year-old was playing loudly with his friends.
D: The 3-year-old was playing loudly with his friends'.
Answers
In compound adjectives where two or more words are used as a modifier like client-centered or well-placed, they are used together. A hyphen makes the meaning more clear in case of compound adjectives like nine-page report. In the above question option D 3-year-old seems to be correct.
In the APA style, a hyphen is used in case two or more words describe or modify a common noun and also that noun appears after the modifier, For example, 6-point scale or client-centered meeting.
In compound adjectives where two or more words are used as a modifier like client-centered or well-placed, they are used together. A hyphen makes the meaning more clear in case of compound adjectives like nine-page report. In the above question option D 3-year-old seems to be correct.
Punctuation are used to organize a sentence . Moreover, it is used to create clarity and sense or to stress in a sentence. For example quotation marks " ", full stop (.), commas and so on.
A sentence which is punctuated correctly is C: The three-year-old was playing loudly with his friends.
The above sentence is correct because it makes appropriate use of hyphens.
The hyphen is a punctuation which is used to glue the words together. In other words, the hyphen indicates that the words are linked together. It has certain rules to be used.
To tell the age of things and people, hyphens are often used. It is used with the months, weeks, years and days but except the plural of these.
Therefore, the above sentence is correct as it makes use of hyphens appropriately. While other sentences are incorrect as it involves the numeric form of three and the second option involves one hyphen which doesn't link the sentence appropriately.