Question involving hyphenation and capitalizing

CathleenT

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Thanks in advance to anyone who wants to help.

A sentence from what will (please, please, please) be my query. You do not know how many drafts this thing has been through.

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]This is how I would put it: Agneta takes a grueling job as a maid to claim what scanty resources she can in Depression-era California. [/FONT][/FONT]

But someone else had Depression Era California.

It's a query. I really want to get it right. What would be best, please?

Thanks, again. :)
 
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alleycat

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I'm certainly no expert, but I would keep it the way you have it in the sentence (Depression-era).

And a nitpicking comment since you're using that sentence in a query: I think you should reword it.
 

cornflake

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I agree with the sad, pie-less kitty on both counts.
 

blacbird

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Ditto. Hyphenation required, for sure. Capitalization of "era" might be proper, but isn't much of an issue. But "Depression-era" is essentially a single concept, expressed as a compound word.

caw
 
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Mamitt

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[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]This is how I would put it: Agneta takes a grueling job as a maid to claim what scanty resources she can in Depression-era California. [/FONT][/FONT]

But someone else had Depression Era California.

It's a query. I really want to get it right. What would be best, please?

Thanks, again. :)

I would have written it like this:
[FONT=&quot]Agneta takes a grueling job as a maid to claim what scanty resources she can during the Great Depression in California. [/FONT]
 

chompers

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It is hyphenated if you are combining multiple words to form one adjective. So here you would need that hyphen.

You would capitalize the "era" if that is that how it is specifically referred as (for example, the White House, not the White house). I hope that makes sense. I think it's not referred specifically that way, so it doesn't need to be capitalized.

My vote for Depression-era California.
 

King Neptune

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I would have written "Depression Era", rather than "Depression-era", so I plugged them into google. Google doesn't handle them differently, so I tried Elizabeth I's reign, and there is a similar mixture, so use what you like. I think that era is a noun, and Depression is an adjective that modifies it, which would suggest caps on both words and no hyphen.
 

guttersquid

I agree with Roxxsmom.
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The general rule is to use a hyphen when creating compound words that are modifiers for and before nouns. Because depression and era are joined to become a single modifier for California, the hyphen should be used.

in the Depression Era
in Depression-era California

I have seen it done both ways, however, and I doubt it would be a deal breaker either way.