Rule 8.7: Hyphenated words count as one word

What a checker looks for

Guidance rather than a pass-or-fail test.

• When counting sentence length, count each whitespace-delimited hyphenated group (e.g. 'soap-and-water', 'trial-and-error', 'cutoff-switch') as one word — not the number of hyphen-joined components inside it.
• When a phrase contains more than one whitespace-separated hyphenated group (e.g. 'main-gear-door retraction-winch handle'), count each group separately as one word each, not the whole phrase as a single word — this phrase is 3 words: 'main-gear-door' (1), 'retraction-winch' (1), 'handle' (1).
• Apply this both to hyphenated compounds functioning as adjectives before a noun and to hyphenated technical nouns constructed for clarity.

What this rule does not cover

• Do not confuse this word-counting rule with rule 8.2, which governs when a hyphen should be inserted in the first place — this rule only affects how an already-hyphenated group is counted.

How to fix it

When calculating sentence word count, treat each whitespace-delimited hyphenated word group as exactly one word; do not inflate the count by counting each hyphen-joined component separately, and do not collapse multiple separate hyphenated groups in one phrase into a single word count.

Constraints on the fix

• Do not remove a correctly placed hyphen (see rule 8.2) in order to manipulate the word count.