Should the following sentence be -

'Well done young woman, that's your good deed for the day.'

Or

'Well-done young woman, that's your good deed for the day.'

Katerina

or even:

'Well done, young woman, that's your good deed for the day.'

with or without the exta comma, there would not be a hyphen.

Seconded. No hyphen, whatever the punctuation.

It seems to be our week for punctuation queries, doesn't it.

Emma

Definitely no hyphen and two commas.

Dee

Thanks, I did suspect it was without, but my stupid spell check said it should have a hyphen. I usually ignore it, but wasn't 100% certain.

I didn't think about putting two commas to be honest, so thanks for that too.

K x

The hyphenated spell-check example was probably referring to its use adjectivally as in 'a well-done piece of beef'. A further example would be 'She was well dressed' but 'She was a well-dressed woman'.

Chris

Absolutely Chris, which is why spelling checkers should be ignored.....

Deb

<Added>

Well, not all the time, but used with caution!

Interestingly, I wouldn't have put the second comma in. I'd have it as

"Well done young woman, that's your good deed for the day."

Or, alternatively

"Well done, young woman that's your good deed for the day."

(although this might even become a semi-colon, I think) I struggle to make a natural sounding sentence with both commas. Mind you, I'm a bit rusty.

Jon
(this would be a lot easier with sound files )

Blimey, shellgrip - sounds familiar. Didn't you used to be on cix?

Deb

Indeed. I get around a bit

Jon