How to hyphenate "corned beef filled"? [closed]
"Tuna-filled" is hyphenated correctly, right?
If we were to fill something with "corned beef", how would we write "corned beef filled"? Where would the hyphen go?
The Chicago Manual of Style would recommend corned beef–filled, with an en dash, not a hyphen. Section 6.80 of the 17th edition:
The en dash can be used in place of a hyphen in a compound adjective when one of its elements consists of an open compound or when both elements consist of hyphenated compounds (see 7.82). Whereas a hyphen joins exactly two words, the en dash is intended to signal a link across more than two. Because this editorial nicety will certainly go unnoticed by the majority of readers, it should be used sparingly, when a more elegant solution is unavailable.
CMOS provides country music–influenced lyrics as an example but also suggests the rephrasing lyrics influenced by country music, because "the relationship [...] depends to some small degree on an en dash that many readers will perceive as a hyphen connecting music and influenced."