Use of hypen, eg re-send, resend
Fullbe
Ian Jackson
<ba8708f0-2c55-48e1...@o1g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
Fullbe <tre...@fullbe.com> writes
>I am unclear when they are used, is there a link explaining this?
I think that the answer is the it's a good idea to insert a hyphen if
the word is 'unclear' without it, and don't insert one when it's
un-necessary! [If you see what I mean.] I normally insert one when a
word looks 'strange' (like "co-operation", and "co-worker" (a word I
have, until now, avoided using).
I always have to think about "set-up" and "setup". Here, I use "set-up"
when it refers to the act of 'setting up' of something, and "setup" when
(for example) it means the physical/electrical arrangement or
configuration after the set-up procedure has been carried out. [Maybe
"setting up" should really be "setting-up".]
--
Ian
the Omrud
No, I wouldn't think so. "to set up" is a phrasal verb. One of the
characteristics is that a pronoun goes between the two parts, which
leaves nowhere for the hyphen.
- The setting up of the tent took a long time.
- I was disturbed while setting it up.
--
David
Eric Walker
> I am unclear when they are used, is there a link explaining this?
There is a broad rule: you use a hyphen when not using it may cause
confusion over meaning, or when not using it produces gross infelicity.
In avoiding confusion, the sub-rule is that you hyphenate compound
modifiers unless the adverbial one is obviously an adverb:
It was mailed in a yellow window envelope. [a yellow envelope with a
window of unspecified color]
It was mailed in a yellow-window envelope [an envelope of an
unspecified color with a yellow-tinted window]
He is a happily married man. ["happily" must be an adverb]
He is a well-satisfied patient ["well" could just barely possibly be an
adjective]
But that is, as I said, a sub-rule. A broader example is the difference
between:
a dancing girl
and
a dancing-girl
Words that use one noun to modify another follow a historical pattern of
being cast as two words, then a hyphenated pair, then a solid single word:
cannon ball; cannon-ball; cannonball
tooth brush; tooth-brush; toothbrush
With those, one just tries to use the currently most common form.
The "gross infelicity" arises in potential compounds such as "cooperate"
or "reevaluate".
For more, get a good book on English usage (Fowler, Bernstein, Follett,
and Garner are all available as used books at reasonable prices).
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Steve Hayes
>I am unclear when they are used, is there a link explaining this?
Use a dictionary.
Usage varies, but if the word is ambiguous without a hyphen, use one e.g.
recent and re-sent, recreation and re-creation, unionised and un-ionised. And
some of us weren't sure how to pronounce "nonnative" when coming across it in
an unseen text.
The one we argued most about where I worked was preByzantine and
pre-Byzantine.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Lars Enderin
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:53:30 -0800 (PST), Fullbe <tre...@fullbe.com> wrote:
>
>> I am unclear when they are used, is there a link explaining this?
>
> Use a dictionary.
>
> Usage varies, but if the word is ambiguous without a hyphen, use one e.g.
> recent and re-sent, recreation and re-creation, unionised and un-ionised. And
Resent and re-sent, surely?
Mark Brader
> > I am unclear when they are used, is there a link explaining this?
> There is a broad rule: you use a hyphen when not using it may cause
> confusion over meaning, or when not using it produces gross infelicity.
>
> In avoiding confusion, the sub-rule is that you hyphenate compound
This sentence and the rest of Eric's message is about hyphenating
phrases formed from multiple words, e.g. "yellow-window envelope".
But that's not what Trevor's question (partly in the subject line)
was about; he asked about hyphenating within a word to set off a
prefix, e.g. "re-sent".
Eric's "broad rule" applies in these cases, but leaves room for
disagreement in many particular situations. For example, people
who regularly talk about resending messages are likely to see all
forms of "resend" as everyday words, and will probably use "resent"
and not "re-sent". People who use the word less frequently may
find it confusing and will prefer the hyphen.
Similarly, people who grew up spelling "co-operative" with a hyphen
may think that "cooperative" looks as if it should be pronounced with
a long OO sound. Others say there is no confusion with any other
word and therefore no hyphen is needed (although they might still
hyphenate the short form "co-op", as there is another word "coop").
And so it goes. See the signature quote below.
--
Mark Brader "'A matter of opinion'[?] I have to say you are
Toronto right. There['s] your opinion, which is wrong,
m...@vex.net and mine, which is right." -- Gene Ward Smith
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Don Phillipson
news:ijdk21$ufg$6...@news.eternal-september.org...
> On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 19:53:30 -0800, Fullbe wrote:
>
>> I am unclear when they are used, is there a link explaining this?
>
> There is a broad rule: you use a hyphen when not using it may cause
> confusion over meaning, or when not using it produces gross infelicity.
Alternatively, another rule recommends never using a hyphen unless
required by some positive rule or tradition. Whatever the cause (e,g,
word processing with automatic justification and word breaks,
proofreading by software instead of people) hyphens seem
nowadays wrongly overused.
We commonly read such barbarisms as ex-patriate for someone
living in a foreign country. This is probably a sort of typographical
back-formation from the common hyphenated prefix ex- to describe
someone who used to be a politician or a thief: but no one used
to be a patriate. (Note also that hyphenating no-one is a commonly
written nowadays but remains an error.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Jeffrey Turner
Sure, put in your two cents.
--Jeff
--
Money to get power;
Power to protect money.
--Medici family motto
John Varela
> Similarly, people who grew up spelling "co-operative" with a hyphen
> may think that "cooperative" looks as if it should be pronounced with
> a long OO sound. Others say there is no confusion with any other
> word and therefore no hyphen is needed (although they might still
> hyphenate the short form "co-op", as there is another word "coop").
The Harvard Cooperative Society, the book store for both Harvard and
MIT, is universally called "the Coop" as in "chicken coop". It
having been founded at Harvard, blame them for the pronunciation.
I grew up spelling cooperate with a diaresis.
--
John Varela
Steve Hayes
Eric Walker
[...]
> Eric's "broad rule" applies in these cases, but leaves room for
> disagreement in many particular situations. . . .
Of course: it must. It relies on there being some referent for the terms
"confusion" and "felicity", but manifestly those are individual matters.
That said, I think that the wise writer anticipates the worst: he or she
does not take for granted that everyone will find "cooperative" smooth
sailing and elegant casting. There might, I suppose, be some small
number of people who are actually distressed over the _presence_ of a
hyphen in the "co-operative" form, but surely they are far outnumbered by
those who find its absence distressing, even if in absolute terms those
latter are themselves few.
The idea of "never using a hyphen unless required by some positive rule
or tradition" clearly flouts the concept of reader convenience and
pleasure: it is saying, in effect, "I don't care what you like, or find
convenient, it isn't absolutely required and you can't make me use it."
Not the best way to endear oneself to one's readers.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker
Mark Brader
> That said, I think that the wise writer anticipates the worst: he or she
> does not take for granted that everyone will find "cooperative" smooth
> sailing and elegant casting.
Huh? That's how it's normally spelled.
> There might, I suppose, be some small number of people who are actually
> distressed over the _presence_ of a hyphen in the "co-operative" form...
There had better be, otherwise you might be right to prefer it.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "I've always wanted to be a mad scientist!
m...@vex.net | Or perhaps just mad!" -- Robert L. Biddle