h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Been a while since I started up a thread - this arose out of a discussion in Peer Review (read A721883, by the way - it's getting rave reviews).

h2g2, especially that bunch up at the towers, seem to be dead set against hyphens at the minute. Given that h2g2 reasearchers are a group of people who like making up compound words, surely the hyphen has an essential use.

Although compound words are increasingly common, fewer are making it into the dictionaries unhyphenated (un-hyphenated?), because of the sheer volume of space that would be required. Surely the hyphen is there to mark a non-standard (nonstandard?) compound word, maybe not in a strict linguistic sense, but certainly for the benefit of readers.

This has come to light especially in words like co-operation, which just looks silly without the hyphen, and pre-teen, which is apparently now standard without hyphen. Views?

B

Wow...I've killed lots of threads, but never with the first post before. I suppose everyone's reading that Peter Pan entry.



B

Maybe some people are having trouble replying. I had to close down my browser and re-open it before I could get to this point. Initially I even had trouble getting onto the h2g2 site. I could access other BBC sites, which makes me think there may be problems at h2g2ville.

Anyhow, my attitude to hyphens is somewhat ambivalent. My first port of call for spelling is always the OED. If the word isn't there, I'll look for the prefix and try to determine from that whether the word should be hyphenated. I also have a 'Good Puntuation Guide', published by Chambers, which gives advice on hyphenation.

Basically, if I can't find a definitive answer anywhere, I'll hyphenate. This is sometimes essential, as it's the only way to get MS Word to recognise that the word has been spelt correctly. However, according to my punctuation guide, hyphenation is just a phase in the development of a word. As an example it gives 'newsagent', which used to be 'news-agent'. If you want more information on what it says about hyphenation, let me know.

Funny...I've had no network troubles at all. Maybe my massive quantities of bulls**t are draining h2g2's server...

The point about MSWord is interesting. I hate the little red squiggly line (although it's too useful to turn off), so I stick hyphens in a lot of the time, to indicate non-standard (nonstandard?) compounds. It's obviously a case of the Towers trying to fight against this B*ll G*tes dominated world.

My punctuation guide (Oxford), is a bit vague - but tends to frown on compound words in any case, unless they're in the dictionary.

B

I've never really thought about this before but, when in doubt, I usually hyphenate. I almost always hyphenate after the 'non-' prefix.

Nonsense!

B

The other question (on a similar theme), is:

When is it correct to use a dash in punctuation. This seems to be another bi no-no for the Sub-Eds. I'm a big fan of dashes myself - they echo the way I speak.

B

What kind of person pays good money for a "Punctuation Guide"?

Anyone with their name in italics...

B

I've got 'Lapsing into a Comma', and that says that hyphens are used when each word has the same emphasis.

But this isn't the case with the likes of 'preteen', 'motorhome', 'subdivided'...all of which are now unhyphenated and have similar emphasises (emphases?) on both halves.

I think I prefer the theory about the evolution of the compound word.

B

That's possibly laziness then. This book has a bit of rant about email. Apparently it should be e-mail.

Yep e-mail. That's the proper way. And I'd say preteen has an emphasis on the first part.

Do you guys also have books on how to put the dot over the I?

Now, I know that you're Danish and, by definition, have a better grasp of the English language than we do, but it's still bloody complicated, alright?

This is the problem with hybrid languages - we're still devoping it. We were still going "ug" while the Danes were speaking virtually the same language on their longships.

B

Now, I know that you're Danish and, by definition, have a better grasp of the English language than we do, but it's still bloody complicated, alright?

This is the problem with hybrid languages - we're still devoping it. We were still going "ug" while the Danes were speaking virtually the same language on their longships.

B

Oops...appeared to have double-posted that one. Damn network drag.

B

Oh don't worry, we also went UGH when we had been drinking enough mjoed. I am just surprised why somebody who isn't a language teacher would own books on proper grammar and such. Okay I think my parents have a few, but that's just them.

I've got one because I became a Sub-Ed and frankly, I was a bit crap.

Nice to see the BBC check your qualifications well then.

I must send them my CV before I fail my degree...

B

Hmm, does that mean if I buy a dictionary I can also work for the BBC linda?