The movie “Manchester by the Sea’’ is garnering rave reviews and some Oscar buzz. But some Massachusetts residents, at least the punctuation sticklers out there, might wonder: What happened to the hyphens?

The official name of the salty Cape Ann town, known for Singing Beach, is Manchester-by-the-Sea. It seems that the film’s producers have claimed poetic license and dispensed with the pesky little connectors.

Beyond the Hollywood oversight, the town of 5,000 has wrestled with its name over the years.

Christened Manchester in 1645, it thrived as a fishing port for 200 years before the summer tourists started arriving.

In 1989, longtime resident Ed Corley argued that the name failed to capture the “uniqueness’’ of the community and lamented that it was often confused with Manchester, N.H.

He proposed calling it Manchester-by-the-Sea, while acknowledging it might be a bit elitist.

The proposal narrowly passed. Sadly, Corley never got to celebrate the victory; he died just days before the vote.

As the Globe’s Billy Baker reported in 2014, many residents, particularly the old-timers, have never fully embraced the unique moniker. They say it sounds pretentious, and risks making a town with a snooty reputation seem even snootier.

Conan O’Brien, the late-night comedian, quipped that the highfalutin name sounds as if it should be accompanied by harp music.

Then there’s the business with the hyphens, punctuation that is routinely flouted.

A local bookstore, Manchester By the Book, eschews it. Owner Mark Stolle sees no reason to change.

“You see the hyphens about half the time, and there’s no rhyme or reason to it,’’ Stolle said.

“I don’t think anyone even knows whether there should be hyphens or not.’’

Correspondent Dylan McGuinness contributed to this report. Roy Greene can be reached at roy.greene@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @roygreene.