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"My personal rule is to hyphenate all e-words unless they are a
company or product name. My rationale is that I can't think of any
hyphenated word that has morphed to no hyphen. For example, O-Ring,
X-Ray...."
Actually, the linguistic trend is eventually to *always* remove the
hyphen from a word. Hyphenation, like acronyms, tend to simplify over
the years. The example that comes immediately to mind is the word
coworker. It was originally hyphenated and some style guides (AP I
believe) still insist that it be hyphenated, but virtually every major
dictionary says no. We are seeing the same thing happening right now
with e-mail and other commonly hyphenated words.
As for me, I choose to hyphenate any time that there is any doubt at
all no matter what the style guides or dictionaries say. I think it
removes the possible confusion over pronunciation. I also tend to
hyphenate all "e-" words for that same reason. Same with our "i-"
words. It's funny now, but my first introduction to itunes came about
with disastrous social consequences. But that's just me and my
linguistic side overriding the more responsible and anal-retentive
editing side.
And as a side note, Chicago 15 does mandate the hyphen for all "e-"
terms (7.90 Compounds Formed with Specific Terms).
Long Live Descriptivism!!!
Dave
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