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[Jamie Lokier]

Wayne Davison wrote:
> > -  (below) in order  to have the rules that are read-in from the file
> > +  (below) in order  to have the rules that are read in from the file
> 
> I consider the original a good use of hyphenation to help distinguish
> the phrase "are read-in from a file" (using the past-tense of "read"),
> as opposed to the sentence "we should read in a compatible manner"
> (using the present tense).  If someone disagrees with this, I'd like
> to see an explanation as to why it is considered to be erroneous.

I think the hyphen is out of place; it looks very wrong to my eye, but
I'm not a grammarian so don't have a fine explanation.

In the same way, "past-tense" looks quite wrong too.

It would be fine in a phrase like "we used the past-tense form of this
word".  The difference in that example is that it is used to form a
compound adjective.  Neither "read-in" nor "past-tense" (in your text)
are adjectives.

To quote http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp (the first
Google result for "hyphenation rules"):

   To check if a compound noun is two words, one word, or hyphenated,
   you may need to look it up in the dictionary. If you can't find the
   word in the dictionary, treat the noun as separate words.

   (That applies to your usage of "past-tense" in the above-quoted email.)

   Phrases that have both verb, noun, and adjective forms should
   appear as separate words when used as verbs and as one word when
   used as nouns or adjectives.

   Examples    The engine will eventually <<break down>>. (verb)

               We suffered a <<breakdown>> in communications. (noun)

               Please <<clean up>> your room. (verb)

               That Superfund site will require specialized <<cleanup>>
               procedures. (adjective)

   (That applies to your usage of "read-in", which is a compound verb.
   Notice no hyphen in the verb example; they are written as separate
   words).

On tenses: There is no need to distinguish the tenses of "read",
because "are read in" is not ambiguous.  But even if you need to
distinguish tenses, hyphenation doesn't do that.  It forms compound
words, which can be of any tense.  (Also, "are read in" is not the
past tense.  Compare with "were read in", which is.  There is some
grammatical term for the tense of "read" in "are read in", which
eludes me).

That said, the web site mentioned above begins with:

    Authorities disagree on hyphenation more than on any other
    punctuation mark. Also, there are just too many rules for one
    human being to learn.  Therefore, the following rules should be
    considered as guidelines only.

I suspect your hyphenation style would have been more the norm a few
decades ago, which may be why it looks right to you: you might have
encountered it in older literature.

Finally, it is often nice to remove words.

> > -  (below) in order  to have the rules that are read-in from the file
> > +  (below) in order  to have the rules that are read in from the file

"(below), to have the rules that are read from the file"

Have a nice day :)
-- Jamie