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The poor old hyphen has certainly fallen upon bad days.
As a punctuation mark, we often use hyphen to join words and to separate
syllables.
Unfortunately, we do not have definitive rules for hyphenation. Writers use
them as per their preferences, mainly to simplify compound nouns, compound
verbs, compound modifiers, prefixes, and suffixes. The idea is to make the
text more reader friendly. However, the use of hyphens varies widely,
specially if we compare its use in British and American English.
Of late, the popularity of hyphens has nose-dived even among the
puritans. The sixth edition of the Oxford Dictionary has eliminated the use
of hyphens from over 16,000 words. Maybe its a sign of our times: People
simply do not have the time or the inclination to bother about a small
detail like a hyphen.
I agree with Richard about the usage of hyphen in technical documentation.
Consistency is the keyword. Be consistent in your usage of the hyphen. After
all you do not want to confuse the reader.
Whether to hyphenate a word or no, you should refer to the standard manual
of style adopted by your organization or a standard Dictionary and check up
the usage when in doubt.
Raj
On Nov 29, 2007 8:39 PM, Combs, Richard <richard -dot- combs -at- polycom -dot- com> wrote:
> Sonja McShane wrote:
>
> > For now, after much searching in archives and the Internet, I
> > need to know definitively if I should hyphenate "command-line
> > utility". I know the compound modifier 'command line' can't
> > be misinterpreted if it's not hyphenated, but I really,
> > really feel the need to hyphenate it anyway.
> >
> >
> >
> > I very much look forward to some authorative answers, and any
> > references as well.
>
> IMHO, the definitive answer is "Pick one and use it consistently. Then
> get on to more important things." This simply isn't worth spending hours
> researching and fretting over.
>
> As I said, IMHO. :-)
>
> Richard
>
>
> ------
> Richard G. Combs
> Senior Technical Writer
> Polycom, Inc.
> richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> 303-223-5111
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> ------
>
>
>
>
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