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The relevant passage of the Chicago Manual of Style begins, "A phrasal
adjective (also called a compound modifier) is a phrase that functions
as a unit to modify a noun. A phrasal adjective follows these basic
rules: (1) Generally, if it is placed before a noun, you should
hyphenate the phrase to avoid misdirecting the reader {dog-eat-dog
competition}." There's a lot more, but that's the basic rule.
There are industries with committee standards for punctuation (e.g.
the IEEE style guide), but I don't believe heavy equipment is one of
them.
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