Index: Doc/library/textwrap.rst
===================================================================
--- Doc/library/textwrap.rst	(revision 62424)
+++ Doc/library/textwrap.rst	(working copy)
@@ -173,10 +173,20 @@
    (Long words will be put on a line by themselves, in order to minimize the amount
    by which :attr:`width` is exceeded.)
 
+.. attribute:: TextWrapper.break_on_hyphens
+
+   (default: ``True``) if true, wrapping will occur preferably on whitespaces and
+   right after hyphens in compound words, as it is customary in English.  If false,
+   only whitespaces will be considered as potentially good places for line breaks,
+   but you need to set :attr:`break_long_words` to false if you want truly
+   insecable words.  Default behaviour in previous versions was to always allow
+   breaking hyphenated words.
+
+   .. versionadded:: 2.6 
+
 :class:`TextWrapper` also provides two public methods, analogous to the
 module-level convenience functions:
 
-
 .. method:: TextWrapper.wrap(text)
 
    Wraps the single paragraph in *text* (a string) so every line is at most
Index: Lib/textwrap.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/textwrap.py	(revision 62424)
+++ Lib/textwrap.py	(working copy)
@@ -63,6 +63,10 @@
       break_long_words (default: true)
         Break words longer than 'width'.  If false, those words will not
         be broken, and some lines might be longer than 'width'.
+      break_on_hyphens (default: true)
+        Allow breaking hyphenated words. if true, wrapping will occur
+        preferably on whitespaces and right after hyphens part of
+        compound words.
       drop_whitespace (default: true)
         Drop leading and trailing whitespace from lines.
     """
@@ -85,6 +89,12 @@
         r'[^\s\w]*\w+[a-zA-Z]-(?=\w+[a-zA-Z])|'   # hyphenated words
         r'(?<=[\w\!\"\'\&\.\,\?])-{2,}(?=\w))')   # em-dash
 
+    # This less funky little regex just split on recognized spaces. E.g.
+    #   "Hello there -- you goof-ball, use the -b option!"
+    # splits into
+    #   Hello/ /there/ /--/ /you/ /goof-ball,/ /use/ /the/ /-b/ /option!/
+    wordsep_simple_re = re.compile(r'(\s+)')
+
     # XXX this is not locale- or charset-aware -- string.lowercase
     # is US-ASCII only (and therefore English-only)
     sentence_end_re = re.compile(r'[%s]'              # lowercase letter
@@ -101,7 +111,8 @@
                  replace_whitespace=True,
                  fix_sentence_endings=False,
                  break_long_words=True,
-                 drop_whitespace=True):
+                 drop_whitespace=True, 
+                 break_on_hyphens=True):
         self.width = width
         self.initial_indent = initial_indent
         self.subsequent_indent = subsequent_indent
@@ -110,6 +121,7 @@
         self.fix_sentence_endings = fix_sentence_endings
         self.break_long_words = break_long_words
         self.drop_whitespace = drop_whitespace
+        self.break_on_hyphens = break_on_hyphens
 
 
     # -- Private methods -----------------------------------------------
@@ -142,8 +154,15 @@
         breaks into the following chunks:
           'Look,', ' ', 'goof-', 'ball', ' ', '--', ' ',
           'use', ' ', 'the', ' ', '-b', ' ', 'option!'
+        if break_on_hyphens is True, or in:
+          'Look,', ' ', 'goof-ball', ' ', '--', ' ',
+          'use', ' ', 'the', ' ', '-b', ' ', option!'
+        otherwise.
         """
-        chunks = self.wordsep_re.split(text)
+        if self.break_on_hyphens is True:
+            chunks = self.wordsep_re.split(text)
+        else:
+            chunks = self.wordsep_simple_re.split(text)
         chunks = filter(None, chunks)  # remove empty chunks
         return chunks
 
Index: Lib/test/test_textwrap.py
===================================================================
--- Lib/test/test_textwrap.py	(revision 62424)
+++ Lib/test/test_textwrap.py	(working copy)
@@ -360,6 +360,14 @@
              ["Hello", " ", "there", " ", "--", " ", "you", " ", "goof-",
               "ball,", " ", "use", " ", "the", " ", "-b", " ",  "option!"])
 
+    def test_break_on_hyphens(self):
+        # Ensure that the break_on_hyphens attributes work
+        text = "yaba daba-doo"
+        self.check_wrap(text, 10, ["yaba daba-", "doo"], 
+                        break_on_hyphens=True)
+        self.check_wrap(text, 10, ["yaba", "daba-doo"],
+                        break_on_hyphens=False)
+        
     def test_bad_width(self):
         # Ensure that width <= 0 is caught.
         text = "Whatever, it doesn't matter."