The occasions for the compounding of words, are in general sufficiently plain, to any one who knows what is intended to be said; but, as we compound words, sometimes with the hyphen, and sometimes without, there is no small difficulty in ascertaining when to use this mark, and when to omit it.  “Some settled rule for the use of the hyphen on these occasions, is much wanted.  Modern printers have a strange predilection for it; using it on almost every possible occasion.  Mr. L. Murray, who has only three lines on the subject, seems inclined to countenance this practice; which is, no doubt, convenient enough for those who do not like trouble.  His words are:  ’A Hyphen, marked thus — is employed in connecting compounded words:  as, Lap-dog, tea-pot, pre-existence, self-love, to-morrow, mother-in-law.’  Of his six examples, Johnson, our only acknowledged standard, gives the first and third without any separation between the syllables, lapdog, preexistence; his second and fifth as two distinct words each, tea pot, to morrow; and his sixth as three words, mother in law:  so that only his fourth has the sanction of the lexicographer.  There certainly can be no more reason for putting a hyphen after the common prefixes, than before the common affixes, ness, ly, and the rest.”—­Churchill’s Gram., p. 374.

OBS. 9.—­Again:  “While it would be absurd, to sacrifice the established practice of all good authors to the ignorance of such readers [as could possibly mistake for a diphthong the two contiguous vowels in such words as preexistence, cooperate, and reenter]; it would unquestionably be advantageous, to have some principle to guide us in that labyrinth of words, in which the hyphen appears to have been admitted or rejected arbitrarily, or at hap-hazard.  Thus, though we find in Johnson, alms-basket, alms-giver, with the hyphen; we have almsdeed, almshouse, almsman, without:  and many similar examples of an unsettled practice might be adduced, sufficient to fill several pages.  In this perplexity, is not the pronunciation of the words the best guide?  In the English language, every word of more than one syllable is marked by an accent on some particular syllable.  Some very long words indeed admit a secondary accent on another syllable; but still this is much inferior, and leaves one leading accent prominent:  as in expos’tulatory.  Accordingly, when a compound has but one accented syllable in pronunciation, as night’cap, bed’stead, broad’sword, the two words have coalesced completely into one, and no hyphen should be admitted.  On the other hand, when each of the radical words has an accent, as Chris’tian-name’, broad’-shoul’dered, I think the hyphen should be used. Good’-na’tured is a compound epithet with two accents, and therefore requires the hyphen:  in good nature, good will, and similar expressions, good is used simply as an adjective, and of course should remain