Half-demon or half demon?

I'm going to be no help. You've just given me a dilemma I didn't have and now I'm watching the thread with interest ;). I have been going with half demon but I really like the idea of half-demon.
 
It's probably better as "half demon" without the hyphen in a sentence like "I'm Juliana, I'm half demon and half porcupine" though it really doesn't matter either way, but if you're making it a compound noun eg by using "a" or "the" ie "I'm Juliana and I'm a half-demon" I'd definitely hyphenate it.
 
And my notes from a professional fiction editor say the compound modifier should only be used if it comes before the word it modifies. So:

The half-demon Juliana.

But:

Juliana is half demon.

Gadzooks!
 
When I first looked at this my mind went a bit sideways and saw half demon as an analogue of terms like fire demon, slime demon, whilst half-demon is a 50/50 mix.

Now I worry what a demonic half actually does. Or a demonic third. And then I started remembering my maths and envisioned an infinite series of demonic fractions.
 
Great. Now the flashes of lightning and crackling of thunder that usually accompany my memories of maths are dubbed over by demonic laughter.
/stalks off muttering to himself. Demonic fractions, who thinks of such a thing.

Anyhow, there's an easy reason why the hyphen is necessary when it is used as a noun, whereas you'd leave it out if it's not a noun.

In the fragment "I'm half demon" the reader expects another word to come after half. Thus it makes sense to read half demon.

In the fragment "I'm a half demon" the reader does not expect another word to come after half. You are essentially saying "I'm a half (other words which are registered as part of a different phrase). You're a half, Harry!
 
Wruter said:
And my notes from a professional fiction editor say the compound modifier should only be used if it comes before the word it modifies. So:

The half-demon Juliana.

But:

Juliana is half demon.

Gadzooks!
Click to expand...

Makes sense. I always thought of hyphening a compound if it works as a modifier/adjective.
 
To throw a spanner in the works... if your word count (or wordcount or word-count) is too large, go for half-demon; if it's too small, go for half demon.... ;):)


By the way, for those who want something to worry about but who don't have any half-demons, or even half demons, in their manuscripts there's always the issue of no-one versus no one. I (tend to) use the former here on the Chrons, but the latter in my manuscripts. (Don't ask me why, as I can't remember.)
 
My demons were once human, so they are once-human demons! If i've understood the above.
 
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