tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post7754512270229256005..comments2024-03-16T00:21:43.240+00:00Comments on Separated by a Common Language: to hyphenate or not to hyphenate?lynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-77833317745629673902021-10-29T14:27:51.790+01:002021-10-29T14:27:51.790+01:00How would not using a hyphen work with the followi...How would not using a hyphen work with the following? I re-sent (the message, email etc) and the case of not using a hyphen - 'I resent (the message, email etc). By not using a hyphen it has a completely different meaning. Surely the prefix is exactly that - a prefix to a word and not the creation of a new word (especially when doing so just duplicates the spelling of an existing word that has it own definition which, in turn, can create confusion). Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07949918496168469895noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-10308514723333467902021-06-16T01:16:41.688+01:002021-06-16T01:16:41.688+01:00*Merriam. Damn you, autocorrect!*Merriam. Damn you, autocorrect!lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-47960781861728051572021-06-16T01:16:14.457+01:002021-06-16T01:16:14.457+01:00That’s the hyphenation break in the Merrimack-Webs...That’s the hyphenation break in the Merrimack-Webster dictionary, so there’s nothing particularly British about it. That’s where the syllable break is. lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-35663136103328706542021-06-15T21:49:31.956+01:002021-06-15T21:49:31.956+01:00I am seeing a lot of odd hyphenation in older Brit...I am seeing a lot of odd hyphenation in older British writings; I just came across "ar-ticle". Any explanation for these?RRWordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13948736496079262723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-74538374018860435832020-12-19T08:41:01.464+00:002020-12-19T08:41:01.464+00:00Oh my, how times have changed when it comes to US ...Oh my, how times have changed when it comes to US senators condoning child abuse among prospective immigrants. <br /><br />Speaking of purported "submersible" and "abusable" entities, the context argument holds a lot of water when it comes to hyphen use in headlines. That being said: the "anti-child-abuse" modifier occurs frequently, even if inconsistently, across single news sites that are widely read and generally respected. A pinch of salt in strictness likely helps in our usage issue, not with the other.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-91891426659475069402020-09-11T18:35:25.290+01:002020-09-11T18:35:25.290+01:00So restore or re-store - to return to its original...So restore or re-store - to return to its original state, or to store again. Remove the hyphen and it isn't as obvious which is the intention until you read more context.Benhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17388234311676611671noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-19877860421442825082019-10-19T03:46:21.564+01:002019-10-19T03:46:21.564+01:00What led me to this site is my absolute distaste o...What led me to this site is my absolute distaste of the over used hyphen. When I am typing in Word and using an adjective before a noun, the spell check joins the words together with a hyphen. Drives me crazy. What do you have against adjectives, I say? Hyphens with prefixes are a different because they are there to aid pronunciation. It's just too easy to think that a 'coworker' is someone employed in the bovine industry. Reelect too easy to miss the second E. But please leave the adjectives alone. And speaking of German and its compound words, how easy is it to pronounce something 7 syllables long?Amanda Draighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10782586324291666525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-38042606754663368142019-04-21T13:46:43.603+01:002019-04-21T13:46:43.603+01:00BrE, Scot, mid 60s. Re cow orking. I have never ac...BrE, Scot, mid 60s. Re cow orking. I have never actually seen the spelling mis-led. But the first few times I saw the word misled, I wondered how you would misle someone. To my young ears, it sounded similar enough to hustle to be plausible.<br /><br /><br /><br />Shy-replyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01891566073375322808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-14682923334502437182014-09-25T23:59:56.228+01:002014-09-25T23:59:56.228+01:00I came down here to the comments to agree with pro...I came down here to the comments to agree with proponents of the diaeresis.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-80934416832370755502008-11-21T00:11:00.000+00:002008-11-21T00:11:00.000+00:00"co-operate", "re-elect", and "no one" strike me a..."co-operate", "re-elect", and "no one" strike me as the most correct forms. The "umlaut" serves to notify the reader that two like adjoining letters are not a long vowel but straddle a syllable break. Now for my pet peeve: every day vs. everyday. The latter is a one-word adjective (an "everyday" word), but the former (meaning "each day") is constantly butchered and spelled as one word. Aargh!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-33091290410673187172007-11-09T21:53:00.000+00:002007-11-09T21:53:00.000+00:00Life, this vale of tears, has but few pleasures or...Life, this vale of tears, has but few pleasures or compensations. As soon as we are old enough to appreciate the joys of childhood, then we adolesce and crave the intoxicating thrills of growing up. Our majority attained, we at first exult in shouldering the yoke of adulthood, but, sooner or later, that burden starts to weigh heavy, and we stoop and strain. Turning to look over our now-bent backs, we glimpse, receding, the days of our youth. Eye, heart and mind strain to recapture the heady freshness of being young again, but, to our chagrin, we find we can only live it vicariously through the clear looks, translucent skins, shining hair and reverberating laughter of our sons and daughters, our pupils and students, and the few fair ones we may glimpse at twilight – they not even noticing us – from some upper window as we go to get a stamp for a letter or a pill for a pain.<BR/><BR/>What does endure, however, is the sheer, stonking whoosh you get from putting a hyphen between two nouns and making a compound from them. Clarkson and his Hamster can keep their noisy, gas-guzzling roadsters. Give me an adjectival noun coupled firmly to its yielding nominal partner any day. Give me traffic-police, can-openers, family-ties, queen-Elizabeth in Buckingham-palace, cream-teas, nylon-stockings, a <A HREF="http://german.about.com/library/blwort_long.htm" REL="nofollow">Danube-steamship-company-captain</A>, moon-landings, harmony-grits, atom-bombs, ring-fingers, fish-fingers, carol-singers, <A HREF="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/english" REL="nofollow"/>, <A HREF="http://www.brightonpier.co.uk/indexflash.htm" REL="nofollow">Brighton-pier</A>, chip-shops, candy-floss, the channel-tunnel, Channel-Four, the British Broadcasting-Corporation, noun-phrases, phrase-structure-rules, language-separation, blog-posts, compound-noun-hyphenation-bores and forum-bans.Paul Danonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04816761952837296368noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-61124437152185735712007-10-26T21:35:00.000+01:002007-10-26T21:35:00.000+01:00Andy- According to the 2000 Census (www.census.go...Andy- According to the 2000 Census (www.census.gov) in the US, German IS the #1 language. There are three different charts, one of primary ancestry, one of secondary ancestry, and a third of all ancestries, and German is first on all three, though Irish is a close 2nd on the secondary list. Numbers from the 3rd list:<BR/>German: 42,885K<BR/>Irish: 30,528K<BR/>English: 24,515K<BR/>United States of America: 20,625KRoger Owen Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05298172138307632062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-7963311391368623742007-10-25T17:02:00.000+01:002007-10-25T17:02:00.000+01:00dearieme - my wife would kill me if I tried that!dearieme - my wife would kill me if I tried that!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-30048134503994349202007-10-25T16:58:00.000+01:002007-10-25T16:58:00.000+01:00Seen today: "multi-wifing".Seen today: "multi-wifing".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-29441672407723643282007-10-25T14:12:00.000+01:002007-10-25T14:12:00.000+01:00Very useful quotation, Nat. Thanks!Very useful quotation, Nat. Thanks!lynneguisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-32151620944656559642007-10-25T13:52:00.000+01:002007-10-25T13:52:00.000+01:00In Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions, Ori...In <I>Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions</I>, Orin Hargraves has this to say about compound nouns being written either as two separate words ("open"), one word ("closed/solid"), or hyphenated: "American English generally is far quicker and more ready to adopt solid compounds, and to eliminate hyphens, than is British English ... A general pattern prevails in which American English is more ready to go from open to closed once usage has been established, foregoing the hyphen stage altogether; and for British English to go immediately to a hyphenated form and never depart from it. But this is not a fast rule..." (pages 30-31, OUP 2003)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-91554773851988642842007-10-25T13:17:00.000+01:002007-10-25T13:17:00.000+01:00I also note the difference between AmE 'percent,' ...I also note the difference between AmE 'percent,' and BrE 'per cent.' for no other reason than I forgot to last time.jhmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15024302748759726815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-23478624589816155302007-10-25T11:07:00.000+01:002007-10-25T11:07:00.000+01:00Ah, John, the loop converges - that sounds like a ...Ah, John, the loop converges - that sounds like a blackhole.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-9080932427371945452007-10-25T06:57:00.000+01:002007-10-25T06:57:00.000+01:00[BrE] What seem to happen is that when a brand new...[BrE] What seem to happen is that when a brand new (brand-new? brandnew?) construction appears it is hyphenated. But when the construction becomes accepted the hyphen is dropped. One recent example would be "e-mail", which is now more usually written "email".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-8769890110407692412007-10-25T03:20:00.000+01:002007-10-25T03:20:00.000+01:00Dearieme:I find "colleague" to be academic or high...Dearieme:<BR/><BR/>I find "colleague" to be academic or highfalutin in tone, and quite unsuitable as a substitute for "coworker". I don't know if this is AmE-specific or not.<BR/><BR/>The hyphen that's inserted between the separate words of a compound used as a modifier, as in "all-weather roads" (but omitted in "roads suitable for all weather"), is a different thing from the permanent use of hyphens in certain compounds. Those are essentially a matter of spelling, and follow the same feedback loop as spelling does: dictionaries write down the usage of publishers, and publishers look in dictionaries when choosing forms. Eventually the loop converges.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-29013468641140046722007-10-24T12:30:00.000+01:002007-10-24T12:30:00.000+01:00Thanks for mentioning 'no one.' E.E. Cummings not...Thanks for mentioning 'no one.' E.E. Cummings notwithstanding, I don't generally have a problem with wanting to make this one word, but I am almost continually surprised that 'a lot' isn't one word.jhmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15024302748759726815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-53213368829674078862007-10-24T10:45:00.000+01:002007-10-24T10:45:00.000+01:00I mentioned this in my blog a few weeks ago and di...I mentioned this in my blog a few weeks ago and didnt know about the differences across different versions of dictionaries. I might have ot ammend that entry.<BR/><BR/>Very interesting, as always, though.DeeDubyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02787109203736547656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-27121992206327285842007-10-24T10:00:00.000+01:002007-10-24T10:00:00.000+01:00The solution to 'cow orker' is to use "colleague"....The solution to 'cow orker' is to use "colleague".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-38572146762087109432007-10-23T23:51:00.000+01:002007-10-23T23:51:00.000+01:00According to Wikipedia (so it might not be true) p...According to Wikipedia (so it might not be true) people of Germanic heritage make up the largest single ethnic group in the US. In German and Dutch (the primary Germanic languages) there is a strong tendency to join words together, creating 'compound nouns'. Could this be a factor, albeit subtle, in the trend?AndyRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06568537171040570814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-85208742281889694442007-10-23T18:44:00.000+01:002007-10-23T18:44:00.000+01:00I use "no one" fairly often in speech, and remembe...I use "no one" fairly often in speech, and remember when I discovered that there wasn't really a way to write it that wouldn't get me in trouble in my (American) elementary school... I still mostly avoid writing it out of habit, but it makes me a little sad.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com