Question

which of these compound expressions is punctuated correctly?
i. tête-à-tête
ii. back-to-back
iii. mis-under-stand
iv. sister-in-law

Explanation:

• For "Tête-à-tête", the hyphens are used correctly in this French loanword compound.
• "Back - to - back" has correct hyphenation for the compound adjective/word.
• "Mis - under - stand" is incorrect; the correct spelling is "misunderstand" (no hyphens between "mis", "under", and "stand" as it is a single word formed with the prefix "mis - " and the root "understand", and we don't hyphenate internal parts of the root word here).
• "Sister - in - law" has correct hyphenation for the compound noun indicating a relative. So I, II, and IV are punctuated (hyphenated) correctly. But if we consider standard English compound word hyphenation:
• "Tête - à - tête" is a valid hyphenated compound (French origin, commonly accepted with hyphens).
• "Back - to - back" is correctly hyphenated as a compound word.
• "Mis - under - stand" is wrong (should be "misunderstand").
• "Sister - in - law" is correctly hyphenated. So the correct ones are I, II, IV. But if the question is about which are punctuated correctly (hyphen usage), we analyze each:
• I: Correct (French compound, hyphens standard).
• II: Correct (compound word, hyphens between the parts "back", "to", "back").
• III: Incorrect (unnecessary hyphens in the root word "understand" when combined with prefix "mis - ").
• IV: Correct (compound noun with hyphens between "sister", "in", "law").

Answer:

I. Tête-à-tête, II. Back-to-back, IV. Sister-in-law (assuming the question is to identify the correctly punctuated ones; if it's a multiple-choice with options to select which are correct, these three are correct. If the options were to pick one, but since multiple are correct, we list the correct ones as per hyphenation rules.)