The hyphens in compound modifiers often (usually? I suppose it depends on the person) do get spoken. It's common to speed up speaking cadence or change breathin

The hyphens in compound modifiers often (usually? I suppose it depends on the person) do get spoken. It's common to speed up speaking cadence or change breathing or pauses through a set of compound modifiers to indicate which are associated and which are distinct. Aesthetic tastes aside, it should be all about having the maximum chance to transfer the writer's thought into the reader's head, and it's cool if AP are finding not having to hyphenate still gets the job done. If nothing else, it can be really difficult to squeeze longer hyphenated phrases into paper columns and such.