From Fowler's "Modern English Usage" O.U.P. 1926.
"HYPHENS. The chaos prevailing among writers or printers or both regarding the use of hyphens is discreditable to English Education. Since it sufficiently proves by its existence that neither the importance of proper hyphening nor the way to set about it is commonly known, this article may well begin with a dozen examples, all taken faithfully from newspapers, in which the wrong use or wrong non-use of hyphens makes the words, if strictly interpreted, mean something different from what the writers intended.
It is no adequate answer to such criticism to say that actual misunderstanding is unlikely; to have to depend upon one's employer's readiness to take the will for the deed is surely a humiliation that no decent craftsman should be willing to put up with……."