How do you turn off the automatic hyphen "feature" on the iPhone?

Okay, I was just able to duplicate your issue. I had my son send me the two messages you have there, about flying home and for vacation, and I was finally able to get the hyphen.

It seems it does have to do with text size. I first went to Settings>Display & Brightness and increased the text size fully. That did not do it. So following the instructions to go to Accessibility for larger font sizes, I went to Settings>General>Accessibility>Larger Text, and turned that on. I then adjusted the text size to 4 less than the largest setting, and I got the hyphen to appear. So, it would appear to me that it has something to do with your font setting. Turning it down one notch removed the hyphen, so I'm not sure if you intentionally increased font size, or if this was something that happened by chance on your device.

I believe if you do the following, you won't have this problem anymore: Settings > General > Keyboard> Turn off Smart Punctuation.
[Edited by Host]

To start out, it would appear that you have the text set to a larger font, which may be creating the issue. What version of the iPhone are you using?

In addition to rbrylawski's response, it appears as if you've omitted some key information from your post. These come to mind:

• The particular message you're referring to appears to be an inbound message - one you received, not sent.
  • How does the sender have this message appear?
  • What are the sender's rules regarding smart punctuation?
• There is a "Replay" link below that particular message.
  • Was the message sent as a dictation?
  • Does it replay correctly?
  • What other facts, if any, are missing?

ChrisJ4203 wrote:

Okay, I was just able to duplicate your issue. I had my son send me the two messages you have there, about flying home and for vacation, and I was finally able to get the hyphen.

Is this how you make him pay you back for sending him to college? 😉

Yup! As long as I keep paying his cellular bill as part of our family, he has to put up with my crazy testing practices for solving ASC questions! This is easy compared to some of the things I've asked him to do.

Not a problem. Try going down one setting at a time, see if it changes, and if you can still clearly see the text. Otherwise yes, you will have to live with it. Glad I could help.