Grammatically Correct: The writer's essential guide to punctuation ...

GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT
imported beef products
bad language rules
stone carving knife
Here, are the middle words meant to be combined with their
predecessors to create compound adjectives, or with their successors
to create compound nouns? Beef products that are imported,
or domestic products made with imported beef? Bad rules about
language, or rules about bad language? A carving knife made of
stone, or a knife for carving stone?
Similarly, it may not always be clear whether an adjective that
comes after another adjective should be combined with the first one
to form a compound, or if it is independently modifying the noun
that follows.
green spotted snake
dirty blonde hair
thirty odd guests
A green snake with spots, or a snake with green spots? Hair of a
brown/blonde shade, or blonde hair that needs washing? Somewhere
between thirty and forty guests, or thirty eccentrics?
USE HYPHENS TO LINK THE WORDS OF A COMPOUND
ADJECTIVE THAT PRECEDES A NOUN IF AMBIGUITY
OR UNCERTAINTY MIGHT OTHERWISE RESULT
When two or more words are intended to collectively function as a
single adjective, link them with hyphens if they come before the
noun they modify and if there's any possibility of misinterpreting
them. Hyphens make the status of each word immediately clear and
make the sentence easier to read overall.
I wouldn't touch that line with a ten-foot pole.
A single 256-byte record allows for 256 single-byte output values.
Come take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy a set
of silver-plated lint-removal brushes at a not-to-be-believed price!
In some cases, as already demonstrated, the absence of a hyphen
could produce misinterpretation or ambiguity.
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The new driver legislation will take effect next month.