The number (-) one way to make someone less stressed is to appreciate them and their struggle, support them no matter what, and share your experience of dealing with a similar problem.
Should there be a hyphen in "number-one way"? CMOS says number + noun (a hundred-meter race, a 250-page book, a fifty-year project) are hyphenated before a noun, otherwise open. But here I have noun + number. Any ideas?
Best Answer
No, there shouldn't be a hyphen. It is an error.
'Number one', used this way, is an adjective. Compound adjectives often do have hyphens (eg 'blue-green', or 'six-foot'). However, as you point out, both 'number' and 'one' are nouns ('one' can be an adjective, too, but as a name for the ordinal, it is a noun) and compound nouns do not always have hyphens. So, in actual fact, it is a compound noun being used as an adjective.
You'll see from a dictionary that 'number one' used as an adjective to mean the first in rank is not written with a hyphen.