the madness of hyphens

I was in the bookstore and was browsing through Eats, Shoots, and Leaves and rifled through the section on dashes, otherwise known as hyphens.  I loved the opening section. It referenced a quote from the Oxford University Press stylebook: “If you take hyphens seriously, you will surely go mad.”

I think, perhaps, I have skirted the edge of madness, for surely, I spend far too much time considering my hyphenating tendencies. But what a madness!