# Two hyphenation problems with non-language items

The first hyphenation problem occurs with the double-word "algébrico-géometriques", which is in French, and I'm writing in English. Unfortunately, I already tried different variants of `\hyphenation{...}` which never do anything. Is there a way to teach LaTeX how to break this word?

The second problem is with the polynomial ring

``````\$k[x_1,\dots,x_n]\$.
``````

It often produces overfull boxes on the right side of the text, and I don't really know how to deal with it except for reformulating text in the area. Is there a way to make those boxes "breakable"?

• english hyphenation won't do anything with words that contain accented letters. probably the best option is to insert discretionary hyphens, for example `al\-gé\-brico-géo\-met\-riques` (may not be the best/correct choices for french). this should already be breakable at the existing hyphen, so `sloppypar` may be helpful if it occurs far enough into a paragraph. – barbara beeton Jul 11 '13 at 19:15

For ad-hoc words that require hyphenation not covered by the language-specific hyphenation patterns, you can use discretionary hyphens `\-` wherever a possible hyphenation break may be needed. For example,

``````al\-gé\-brico-géo\-met\-riques
``````

defines four additional points of hyphenation (in addition to the hyphenation already supplied as part of the word).

Inline math does not break everywhere regular text would break. Operators and relations are common break-points, but not around `,`. For this, LaTeX needs some encouragement. See How to achieve line break in simple `\$formula\$`-mode and the use of something like `\mathlist`. It inserts `,\allowbreak` at every `,` which allows a line-break after the comma. Your use case would be

``````\$k[\mathlist{x_1,\dotsc,x_n}]\$
``````

Note that I've used `\dotsc` from `amsmath`. See Difference of the `\dots`* for a reference to their uses.

• There's no need to use `\dotsc` here; just `\dots` is sufficient, because a comma does follow. – egreg Jul 11 '13 at 19:29