The Weltchek Weekly

Please check-in at the front desk, read the sign in the building lobby.

I didn’t take issue with giving my name to the gentleman seated outside the elevator bank, but I did have a problem with the hyphenated rendition of check-in. The sign should have said to check in at the front desk—no hyphen.

When check in is used as a verb, it is hyphen free. But when it’s used as a noun, it takes a hyphen, as in, We meet once a week for a check-in.

The same goes for follow up. As a verb, it doesn’t take a hyphen, but as a noun and as an adjective, it does. So, you would write, Follow up with me if this is unclear, and In our follow-up session, we cleared up all the confusion in just a few minutes.

Oh, if life were just that easy!