Q: Is it correct to leave “post” as a separate word in the following sentence? “These activities must take place from prelaunch to post launch.”
A: In section 8.3.1 (“When Not to Use Hyphens”), you’ll see the following:
Note that when post is used as a combining adjectival form, as in postmortem examination, it is set closed up. When it is used as an adverb, as in post hoc testing, it is set as 2 separate words.
So in your example, you would not close up “post launch.” However, the meaning of this sentence is ambiguous to me. I would suggest rephrasing it to avoid an awkward construction and to clarify exactly what interval you are talking about. How about “These activities must take place both before and after launch.”?—Cheryl Iverson, MA
I thought the quoted section of text related to the text above on Latin expressions or non-English-language phrases. Does this apply more generally then?
In the following sentence, would “post infusion” NOT be closed up, because it’s not part of a combining adjectival form?
Patients regularly taking BZDs from 7 days preinfusion to 7 days post infusion were classified as BZD users.
Hi Rebecca,
In this post, Cheryl Iverson makes the point that post and pre are typically closed up when words are used as adjectives and not closed closed up when used as adverbs, so in the sentence you wrote, you would treat post as “postinfusion” just as you had treated pre with “preinfusion.” However, this is another situation in which it may be more clarifying to use the terms “before and “after” instead (eg, before infusion and after infusion).