Short Oxford Dic breaks 16,000 hyphens.

quote

from reuters:

london (reuters) - 16,000 words have succumbed pressures of internet age , lost hyphens in new edition of shorter oxford english dictionary.

bumble-bee bumblebee, ice-cream ice cream , pot-belly pot belly.

, if you've got problem, don't such crybaby (formerly cry-baby).

hyphen has been squeezed informal ways of communicating, honed in text messages , emails, spread on web sites , seep newspapers , books.

"people not confident using hyphens anymore, they're not sure for," said angus stevenson, editor of shorter oed, sixth edition of published week.

factor in hyphen's demise designers' distaste ungainly horizontal bulk between words.

"printed writing design-led these days in adverts , web sites, , people feel hyphens mess of nice bit of typography," said. "the hyphen seen messy looking , old-fashioned."

team compiled shorter oed, two-volume tome despite name, committed grammatical amputations after exhaustive research.

"the whole process of changing spelling of words in dictionary based on our analysis of evidence of language, it's not think looks better," stevenson said.

researchers examined corpus of more 2 billion words, consisting of full sentences appeared in newspapers, books, web sites , blogs 2000 onwards.

part, dictionary dropped hyphens compound nouns, unified in single word (e.g. pigeonhole) or split 2 (e.g. test tube).

hyphens have not lost place altogether. shorter oed editor commended first-rate service rendered english in form of compound adjectives, 1 in middle of sentence.

"there places hyphen necessary," stevenson said. "because can start real ambiguity."

twenty-odd people came party, said. or twenty odd people?

of 16,000 hyphenation changes in shorter oxford english dictionary, sixth edition:

formerly hyphenated words split in two:

fig leaf, hobby horse, ice cream, pin money, pot belly, test tube, water bed

formerly hyphenated words unified in one:

bumblebee, chickpea, crybaby, leapfrog, logjam, lowlife, pigeonhole, touchline, waterborne

click expand...

i found comment typography , design effecting decisions interesting. however, wonder if attempting sugar-coat fact general populous doesn't know when use them.

sadly, article lacks list of words kept hyphens intact.

 

i use them time.

 

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