Schlidentogetherlich words (hyphenation actually)

[JustRob]

I doubt that the Germans even know what a hyphen is but I have frequent debates with the spelling checker on my computer about which English compound words need a hyphen. Personally I put one in when it makes them easier to read but not otherwise. When reading the solution to a crossword puzzle once I read the word "earache" and for a moment didn't realise that it was a combination of two words and hence couldn't even work out how to pronounce it, let alone recognise it as a word that I knew. It must have been all those little boxes getting in the way that confused me. Therefore even common usage and the shortness of a word isn't necessarily that relevant.

When exactly does a "windscreen wiper" get upgraded to a "windscreen-wiper" and ultimately a "windscreenwiper" and who decides? I imagine that for it to be accepted as the Queen's English Her Majesty would have to sign some form of proclamation, but I doubt that the promotion of "windscreen-wiper" to "windscreenwiper" would appear in her birthday honours list.

That said, there was the case of the loin of beef served at the banquet to welcome King James the first (first of England anyway) to Lancashire centuries ago. He is said to have been so impressed with the joint that he knighted it, making it Sir Loin, or was that Sir-Loin as I have seen it written in some versions of the tale, and was there some similar protocol to follow when it finally became sirloin?

Seriously though (Actually I thought I was already being serious.) how does one decide whether to hyphenate? Today my angel asked me how to write "pillbox" in a post and I told her to do it the same way as "letterbox", which seemed logical to me, but I'm not the sort to go running to find a dictionary whenever my spelling checker rebukes me for failing to insert a hyphen or even write two words separately. Fortunately the computer that I am currently using doesn't have one active, so I can type what I like. I think I'd better read this post back now and check for spelling mistakes then.

[patskywriter]

Years and years ago, there were quite a few words that were hyphenated that aren’t hyphenated anymore, such as “to-day,” “to-morrow,” and “co-operate.” We even had words with umlauts (“cöoperate,” “inflüenza,” and “näive.”)!

When I was a freelance proofreader, we were told to go by however the word appeared in the Webster 10 (dictionary). It took quite a while for “fund-raiser” or “fund raiser” to become “fundraiser.” Of course, umlauts have pretty much been dispensed with, and hyphens are, thankfully, disappearing as well. I’d suggest following the latest edition of Webster’s or you should at least create a style sheet that contains any questionable words for the sake of consistency.

[JustRob]

Webster's? But I'm English! Long live the OED!

Actually I'll probably always just guess or act my age. (Some may disagree about the latter.) Surely it's reasonable for my writing to reflect my past education though. Pass me a fresh quill and a penknife (as opposed to a pen-knife or pen knife). And by the way, speaking of that, it's Fora, not Forums, you modernistic people. I'm not that naïve. (The mark there over the second of the two vowels is a diaeresis as opposed to an umlaut, which would appear over the first, for those who don't know, so psw and myself are both right. I wasn't aware that the umlaut had ever been used in British English though. Was that a separate German influence on American English?)

[Terry D]

Some reasonably-clear guidance:

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/hyphen/

[patskywriter]

I wasn't aware that the umlaut had ever been used in British English though. Was that a separate German influence on American English?)

That’s a good question! I do remember being shocked when I first saw what’s called the Bellamy salute in movies from the 1930s. That was a palms-out salute to the USA flag, which was used from the late 1890s to the 1930s or so and later adopted by the Nazis. (And in response to that, the Bellamy salute was replaced with the hand-over-heart gesture and is still in use today.) So I guess cultural influences can go both ways.

Come to think of it, acute accents and cedillas seem to have disappeared as well. I vaguely remember “façade” and “façile.” Acute accents were clumsily represented with apostrophes (Renee’ instead of Renée). I wonder if accents fell out of favor because people couldn’t approximate them with standard typewriters. Maybe they’ll come roaring back now that typewriters have been replaced with computers. … Nah! LOL

[Olly Buckle]

'Check the dictionary' the user is told, but dictionaries are based on usage; a closed circle it seems. ,


My father who was born on Christmas day, used an um-thingy over his second name 'Noel'. I am not because I have no idea where to find it on this machine, pens were easier that way.

I think your system of doing what seems right at the time is spot on, and the dictionaries will adapt in time as necessary.

[JustRob]

My father who was born on Christmas day, used an um-thingy over his second name 'Noel'. I am not because I have no idea where to find it on this machine, pens were easier that way.

My father-in-law (with hyphens) was too but didn't use an umlaut on his third name "Noel". The spelling checker in my word processor automatically adds the diaeresis to the word "naive" but the one here with my browser evidently doesn't, so in my previous post I pasted the word in from my word processor. Decent text editors have a feature for inserting special characters with accents but this one in vBulletin apparently doesn't.

Some reasonably-clear guidance:

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/hyphen/

Thanks. That's very comprehensive and much of what it says is pretty much common sense, if such a thing actually exists, but it was so long that I got bored with the subject partway through. I'm starting to wish that I hadn't asked.

Come to think of it, acute accents and cedillas seem to have disappeared as well. I vaguely remember “façade” and “façile.” Acute accents were clumsily represented with apostrophes (Renee’ instead of Renée). I wonder if accents fell out of favor because people couldn’t approximate them with standard typewriters. Maybe they’ll come roaring back now that typewriters have been replaced with computers. … Nah! LOL

Back in the 1960s I bought a typewriter with some of my first earnings, but as I was doing a lot of mathematical work I had the keyboard modified for my purposes. You could do that back then. I was so pedantic that it even had a decimal point that looked just like the full stop but was in the centre of the line instead of at the bottom. No accents though because typing words wasn't my thing then. However, another feature of the typewriter was that you could delay the carriage movement to overtype accents if you had them. If by any chance I needed a colon or semicolon I could overtype the decimal point onto a full stop or comma. Happy days.

[patskywriter]

'Check the dictionary' the user is told, but dictionaries are based on usage; a closed circle it seems.

I suggested the dictionary due to my experience as a freelance proofreader for a few publishing houses some years ago. We were instructed to rely on the latest edition of Webster’s (back then, the “Web 10”) because we had to be held accountable for the decisions we made. It might not actually matter for writers who are self-publishing, or who don’t plan to have their work scrutinized by picky proofreaders.

I think your system of doing what seems right at the time is spot on, and the dictionaries will adapt in time as necessary.

I agree. It was SO frustrating knowing that words like “fund-raising” would soon evolve into “fundraising” and having to wait for the dictionaries to catch up. In any case, it’s probably more important to make sure that you’re consistent with whatever spellings you happen to choose.

[JustRob]

My father-in-law (with hyphens) was too but didn't use an umlaut on his third name "Noel".

On reflection that was technically correct as my angel's family always pronounced his name as "Nole".

[Olly Buckle]

On reflection that was technically correct as my angel's family always pronounced his name as "Nole".

My Aunt Alice always called him Noel, everybody else always called him 'Buck', short for Buckle, I was quite old before I wondered why his signature was R.N.Buckle and what his first name was ? Alice always signed herself Alys, not her 'real' name. My mother was named 'Mary' because it was a short name that could not be changed, called 'Molly' all her life. Families!