What's the general consensus, should 'single header' be hyphenated or not? The context is for a sports match press release I've just written: '...as it’s a single header with no distractions.' Obviously this is as opposed to a double header, which is what the games usually are (two games one after each other), hence mentioning that it's a single header so people know what they're buying a ticket for. I've just hyphenated it and deleted the hyphen about 3 times, sent it to the person who proof reads for us and they can't decide either, and the Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries also don't have the answer. I'm guessing (and hoping!) that means the answer is 'it doesn't matter.'
doubleheader is generally written as a single word... so i suppose you could do the same, but you'd be coining a new word, since a 'single game' isn't now referred to that way, as far as i can tell... i don't know why you'd think doubleheaders are the norm, though... i would expect people to not assume a game announcement would mean it was a doubleheader unless it was called that... without 'doubleheader' it seems to be quite clear that you're only referring to a single game...
I must agree here with Maia. The fact that the term "doubleheader" exists is evidence that the situation defined by that word either actually is or is generally perceived as other than the norm.
Doubleheaders are absolutely the norm in this sport, which is not mainstream, so fans need to know it isn't one because otherwise they will moan about buying a ticket and only seeing one game. If they are told in the press release it isn't, then I can at least point that out when the inevitable happens.
Does it matter what the sport is? The issue is that the club, (which is actually known as a league, but that's confusing for people in the UK because leagues generally refer to lots of teams playing against each other and getting ranked accordingly), normally puts on doubleheaders consisting of the either the B-team or the men's team vs an opponent followed by the A Team vs an opponent. This time, it's just the A Team playing, so I need to put in the press release that it will be a single header, and I couldn't find clarification on whether that should be hyphenated or not. I'm not getting any more information here, so I guess there isn't any to be had and it's up to me. I'm not totally sure why my knowledge of the sport I play and whether or not they are normally doubleheaders is being cross-examined in the context of the question I asked. For what it's worth, they aren't called games either, but for the sake of clarity I used a term people would understand and associate with sport generally in my original post.
the basic info asked for could have allowed us to give you the requested advice, since someone here might be familiar with that 'sport'...don't know why you have to get testy about it, or be so secretive, when we're only trying to help...
The Free Dictionary has an entry for doubleheader and double-header and no entry for singleheader or single-header. Logic does not always apply to related words when the base word has been adopted because of frequent use. I would accept the dictionary entry and use two words, single header, no hyphen. I believe, however, hyphens are allowed in new combinations, so single-header would also be acceptable.
Thanks GingerCoffee - I think that was the conclusion we'd come to as well, so it helps to know we were thinking along the right lines.
