Using Hyphens

[Unregistered]

Hi,

If I am advertising cow print material (material that has the print of a cow's black and white marks), would I write 'Cow-Print', 'Cow-print), 'Cowprint' or 'Cow Print'? I will be using the words 'Cow' and 'Print' as a title for something, and I would like to know which way it should be written.

Thank you.

[BobK]

If it's an adjective, I'd say "cow-print". But hyphens are rather ephemeral in the history of the language. Some people write "black-bird" and some write "blackbird"; originally it was "black bird" - but a female blackbird is not a black bird (she's brown). I keep a range of dictionaries, so that I can watch hyphens coming and going.

b

[Casiopea]

How are the other companies advertising it? This might help: cow print - Google Image Search.