Re: Hyphenation Conventions

[Earl Morton <WorkgWords -at- AOL -dot- COM>]

In a message dated 97-03-20 11:06:56 EST, Lisa Higgins writes:

>>
 Newly-coined words generally start out as two words, then hyphenate,
 then become a single word. (E.g., to morrow, to-morrow, tomorrow)

 Personally, I try to stay ahead of the curve if I'm reasonably sure
 that the word is common enough that everyone will understand it. I
 don't want to run the risk of my user manuals looking quaint in a
 couple of years.
<<

Interesting! I try to stay a little behind the curve, so the text doesn't
look like a mistake or typo to those readers who are more conservative about
such things and slower to adopt the changes. I figure that readers who accept
the changes sooner are more likely to forgive me (or not even notice) if I
use the older, more conservative convention, while those who prefer the older
form are more likely to blame me (and more importantly, my client) for an
"error" in usage if I change before they do. I use this approach for just
about all changing grammatical and typographical conventions.

Earl Morton
WorkgWords -at- aol -dot- com

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