Spelling South East Asia

[Frederick Williams]

How does one spell South East Asia? Like that or Southeast Asia or
South-East Asia?
--
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

[Miss Elaine Eos]

In article <48761726...@tesco.net>,
Frederick Williams <frederick...@tesco.net> wrote:

> How does one spell South East Asia? Like that or Southeast Asia or
> South-East Asia?

Southeast is one word, Asia is another. Together, they form Southeast
Asia.

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[Einde O'Callaghan]

Frederick Williams wrote:
> How does one spell South East Asia? Like that or Southeast Asia or
> South-East Asia?

You will find all three versions in use. A quick look at the results of
a Google search indicate that "southeast" is more common on American
websites, whereas "south east" seems to be more common on British, Irish
and Australian websites. The hyphenated form seems to be relatively
rare, even if it is also orthographically correct - actually technically
it is more correct in the adjectival form than "south east".

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

[Frederick Williams]

I asked because D G E Hall's well-known book uses the hyphenated form in
its title.

[Einde O'Callaghan]

Frederick Williams wrote:
> Einde O'Callaghan wrote:
>> Frederick Williams wrote:
>>> How does one spell South East Asia? Like that or Southeast Asia or
>>> South-East Asia?
>> You will find all three versions in use. A quick look at the results of
>> a Google search indicate that "southeast" is more common on American
>> websites, whereas "south east" seems to be more common on British, Irish
>> and Australian websites. The hyphenated form seems to be relatively
>> rare, even if it is also orthographically correct - actually technically
>> it is more correct in the adjectival form than "south east".
>>
>> Regards, Einde O'Callaghan
>
> I asked because D G E Hall's well-known book uses the hyphenated form in
> its title.
>

As I said, I think the hyphenated form is orthographically more correct
in British English - it's a compound adjective. According to the
Merriam-Webster Dictionary the single word form is correct in American
English.

However, a quick look at the Google search results, which don't
differentiate between the three forms, seems to indicate that the
two-word version is the most common form on British, Irish and
Australian websites, and the one-word version is dominant on American
websites. Sites using the hyphenated form seem to be a small minority.

Admittedly, that tells us nothing about correctness, but it tells zus a
lot about usage.

As an English teacher I'd accept all three forms as long as usage is
consistent within a particular piece of work.

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan

[Frederick Williams]

Now I have the book in question[1] in front of me, I can say more. Here
is a large part of the opening paragraph:

South-East Asia is a term which came into general use during the
Second World War to described the territories of the eastern Asiatic
mainland forming the Indo-Chinese peninsula and the immense
archipelago which includes Indonesia and the Philippines. In using
the term American writers have standardized the form 'Southeast' and
have been followed by Victor Purcell[2] and E. H. G. Dobby.[3] But
there seems to be no valid reason for coining a new form in
preference to either 'South-East' or 'South East', both of which
have the sanction of long usage. The Royal Navy uses the hyphen.
During the war SEAC used the unhyphenated form, but the Mountbatten
Report[4] reverts to the use of the hyphen. ...

[1] _A History of South-East Asia_ by D. G. E. Hall, second edition,
MacMillan, 1966.
[2] _The Chinese in Southeast Asia_, 1951.
[3] _Southeast Asia_, 1950.
[4] _Report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied
Commander South-East Asia_, 1951.