Question

How do I hyphenate an age, such as 23 year old or twenty three year old? Is it 23 year - old or twenty - three year - old?

Answer 1

Hint:
i) A hyphen (-) is a punctuation mark used to match words or parts of words. It's not interchangeable with other types of dashboards.
ii) Use a hyphen to modify a compound when the changer comes before the word it modifies.
iii) It depends on whether the phrase precedes or follows the noun that it describes, or whether or not it is used as a noun.

Complete answer:
Two words, combined as a compound, may be written separately, written as a single word, or connected by hyphens. Hyphenate "year old" if the phrase foreruns a noun that is altering it. Do not add a hyphen between "year" and "old." If you are writing numbers (such as fifty-second, thirty-eight or twenty - three), one must put a hyphen between the words if the number is less than a hundred.

Following are 2 examples:
The twenty-three-old wine tasted much better than the twenty-five-year-old wine.
She's only a two-year-old woman, but she already knows what she wants to do when she grows up.

If the age comes after the noun it describes, don't hyphenate it.
Here's an example: my mother was just 65 years old.

Thus, it depends on the structure of the sentence, i.e. whether or not the sentence precedes the noun.

Note:
i) Hyphenation can be understood as the process of using hyphens..
ii) A hyphen may be used to link groups of numbers, such as dates, phone numbers or sports scores.
iii) Sometimes the hyphen is used to hide letters in words.