[Michael Juster]

...off guard or off-guard?

[Michael Cantor]

The phrase has been used a good deal lately, for obvious reasons. Here's a typical example, from one of my favorite sources, which goes with off guard. And here's another off guard, again from a reliable and trusted source.

Prior to checking. I would have leaned toward off-guard, but probably indicated that either was fine, as long as you were consistent - and the best bet was to write it both ways and see which looked better in the context of the overall piece, other punctuation, even the type face (type-face?) used. But once I checked with the forces of wisdom and truth, that became irrelevant.

[Siham Karami]

Reliably, Michael Cantor's sources are right. The only case where you might consider the hyphenated version is if you used it (unusually) as an adjective, as in "it happened in an off-guard sort of way," but now that I said this, I can't recall having heard the expression used this way. Mostly off-hand for that. But "he was taken off guard" should be two words.

[W.F. Lantry]

off-guard. Unless it's an actual military application, in which case I defer to the uniform code of military syntax.

https://www.google.com/search?q=off-...revid=10435810

[Michael Juster]

And I, who was unable to avoid such reefs,
was borne [off-guard/off guard] to unseen shoals and rocks.

It's a translation; I don't make this stuff up.

[Michael Juster]

Michael:

I mean, I am grateful you didn't quote from "Ready for Hillary" or "Weak-kneed for Warren" (Weak kneed? Weak Need?), but really, you can do a little better...

Mike

[Michael Cantor]

Mike - I believe it's Heady for Hillary, and Wonks for Warren, but you get the idea.

[Julie Steiner]

Psst, Michael C...Hillary ditched the headbands back in 1992....

[Michael Juster]

I think Michael is confusing her with Eleanor Roosevelt again.

[Michael Juster]

I am going with the hyphen.

We'll see what the copy editor says.

Again, thanks to everyone!