What's with Teen agers/Teen-agers/Teenagers Today

A mini-lesson on the evolution of hyphens with a side trip into a parallel structure lesson.

Transcript

1. What's with Teenagers/Teen-agers/Teen agers Today?
2. Down a rabbit-hole Fortnite, for anyone not a teen-ager or a parent or educator of teens, is the third-person shooter game that has taken over the hearts and minds—and the 9me, both discre9onary and otherwise — of adolescent and collegiate America.
3. for anyone not a teenager for anyone not a teen-ager for anyone not a teen ager
4. It's 1921 Canadian Newspaper All teen age girls of the city are cordially invited to a3end the mass mee5ng to be held this evening.
5. It's 1935 Journal of American Speech The dress is probably slinky and suitable for the teen-age group.
6. It's 1977 Daedalus Quarterly Society may wish to eliminate teenage street corner gangs, but this does not lead sociologists to write ar6cles on the op6mal techniques for elimina6ng such gangs.
7. It's 1999 New York Times Style Manual Suggests unhyphenated usage
8. It's 2018 The New Yorker Magazine Style Manual Con$nues to require hyphena$on
9. Prescrip(ve vs Descrip(ve
10. Grammar vs Style
11. Climbing out of the rabbit-hole On to parallel structure In terms of fervor, compulsive behavior, and parental noncomprehension, the Fortnite craze has elements of Beatlemania, the opioid crisis, and the inges:on of Tide Pods. Parents speak of it as an addic:on and swap tales of plunging grades and brazen screen-:me abuse: under the desk at school, at a memorial service, in the bathroom at 4 a.m. They beg one another for solu1ons.
12. So That's What's Up With Teenagers/Teen-agers/Teen agers Today