The new general manager of the New York Jets “was a league scout in the American offices of the now-defunct World League of American Football,” one news report said. Another told of the sale of a “now defunct university’s” campus.
Yes, it’s our old friend the hyphen, far from defunct, but not always needed.
The phrase “now defunct” is another journalism mannerism, a phrase not often spoken aloud. But we love it: It allows us to tell readers that this thing of which we are about to speak is no longer around.
There are better ways to do so, avoiding the hyphen issue entirely.
But first, let’s dispense with the grammar. “Now” and “defunct” make up a compound, two words that work together to modify another. Whether to hyphenate a compound is always a matter for discussion and dissent.
“It is never incorrect to hyphenate adjectival compounds before a noun,” The Chicago Manual of Style says, reminding us, though, that “When such compounds follow the noun they modify, hyphenation is usually unnecessary.”
“Now defunct” is called out by name in two other style guides.
The “Ask the Editor” feature of The Associated Press Stylebook says to hyphenate “now-defunct” “as a compound adjective (and for clarity),” though AP is generally hyphen averse.
The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage not only doesn’t want a hyphen, it doesn’t like the phrase at all:
“Dictionaries accept it in compound modifiers” — like “now defunct” — “but that usage produces unpolished phrasing with the sound of overliteral translation. Replace it with phrases like this: The comedian, now famous; the magazine, now defunct.
Nonetheless, it appears quite a few times in The Times, with a hyphen. “Defunct” is fun to say, after all.
Garner’s Modern American Usage calls out the “ghastly blunder” of writing it as “defunk.” Luckily, that shows up only three times in Nexis for all of 2014, aside from contexts of “getting the funk out” of something.
“Defunct” comes from the Latin for “discharged, deceased, dead,” The Oxford English Dictionary says, formed from the prefix “de” plus “fungi to perform, discharge (duty).” That’s not the same “fungi” as in mushrooms, by the way; those “fungi” derive from a word for “sponge.”
“Now defunct” seems to be hyphenated about half the time before a noun (“the now-defunct Des Moines Tribune“); as CMOS says, it should not be hyphenated after the noun (the Des Moines Tribune, now defunct.”
You can use “defunct” by itself (“the defunct store”), but sometimes you need a “now” to make clear that the thing you are writing about now is no longer in existence.
You can also avoid the issue of the hyphen (or “unpolished phrasing”) altogether. Instead of writing “she worked for the now(-)defunct Des Moines Tribune,” you could say, “she worked for the Des Moines Tribune, which is now defunct.” Or, you could say, “she worked for the Des Moines Tribune, which folded in 1982.” Same number of words, more information.
Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl.