This is driving me crazy, because in Googling for "the" answer I'm finding inconsistency and I don't have a current Chicago Manual of Style. Strunk & White were no help. What is the proper way to write this description: old world manners Capital letters? Old World manners Caps and dash? Old-World manners no caps but dash? old-world manners None of the above? None of them look right, and all of them do! The sentence is: His old world manners and calm demeanor had already won her over. (Person "his" refers to is Russian, and it's one of his most defining characteristics, because they dictate how everyone else reacts to him.) I'm in the US, if this is one of those cases where UK and US are different. Thank you! ETA: I know it's a weak sentence, but it's the POV of a shy character who has no confidence in herself.
Because "old" modifies "world," which together modify "manners," "old world" is treated entirely as an adjective that modifies the noun "manners," and would therefore be "old-world manners." That's how I learned it. What Chicago style specifically says about multi-word adjectives, I don't know. Edit: Oh, and the caps. I don't think "old-world" is capped unless its a proper noun in your story's universe.
Thank you so much @Laurus , and for taking the time to explain the "why." I somehow had it two different ways in this draft, and Word hadn't flagged either of them. Humans rule!
I'll offer a dissenting opinion: in American usage, "Old World" is a single adjective, and it is not hyphenated. See: how we write "Old World monkey."
If you're using "old world" to refer to Eurasia+Africa, in the same way "New World" refers to the Americas, it would be "Old World", since it's a place name. Since you refer to Russia, it seems like this usage is what you're going for.
Merriam has this as just an adjective: old-world old-world: of, relating to, or characteristic of the Old World; especially :having the charm or picturesque qualities of the Old World narrow old-world streets So, "old-world manners." But if you refer to the place, just like in their definition, it's Old World.
Strange. Every time I've ever seen the adjectival form in print, it was "Old World" whatever, while every dictionary I'm finding gives "old-world". This may be one of those cases where the common and correct usages diverged from each other.
You can see why I was confused... When it's vague, an editor can't fault a person for going with Merriam, so I'll go with @Seven Crowns . That's what I was finding as well, so I was hoping Strunk and White or Chicago could break the tie. ;-) Thank you so much for your time, everyone!!!
