Re: Hyphenation for ESL audiences?

[John Cornellier <cornellier1 -at- stavanger -dot- oilfield -dot- slb -dot- com>]

Your examples would be clearer with hyphenation, both for native speaking and ESL audiences.
Assuming it is a good idea to write for ESL, perhaps the hypenation usage would depend on the grammar of the target audience's language.
Examples:
In German, "Freeze prevention strategies" would be concatenated into one word.
In French, it would be more like "strategies for the prevention of freezing".

Our ability in English to noun verbs and vice versa is an asset as well as a liability, in that it can create ambiguity. Is "freeze" a verb or a noun? Hence the need for hyphens, or a rewrite.

John Cornellier

On Thursday 21 August 2003 00:00, Marshall, Anna wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> When you're writing and editing material for audiences who speak English as
> a secondary language, do you tend more or less toward hyphenation?
> Specifically, I'm looking for info on compound adjectives or nouns that
> could go either way hyphenation-wise. Examples:
>
> Freeze prevention strategies
> Cold chain storage
>
> And yes, I know that *most* sentences could be re-written to avoid this
> question; however, sometimes I get documents at the last minute, and I need
> to make the easiest fix possible in terms of not muddling text-wrapping or
> layout.