People don't know how to use hyphens.
"Well-oiled machine" vs. "machine is well oiled".
The first form is something you frequently see with the hyphen (erroneously) omitted; getting the second form wrong is more rare, but still happens.
What I'm seeing a lot more these days, which makes me cringe, is using a hyphen in numbers where it's not appropriate, especially with currency. For example,
A budget of 5-million-dollars was approved...
or, similarly with temporal units:
She was 5-years-old at the time...
Or variations thereon. In all-these cases, there should be no-hyphens! ;-)
One of the worst offenders I've seen is the guy who writes the copy for WJLA T.V. news in Wash.D.C..
Regrettably, they don't teach this stuff in schools, it's not well explained anywhere I can find, and most people find it quite hard to just pick it up by example.
