Literature
The disappearing hyphen
27/09/07
What's in a hyphen?
16000 words have been de-hyphenated in the latest short edition of the Oxford English dictionary. The cock-a-hoop linguists responsible are praising themselves for a job well done.
The bumble-bee, for instance, has now been condensed into one word, as have icecream and 15998 other compound nouns. However, this clear-out is only short-lived because linguistically value-adding compound nouns will soon appear auto-magically in the place of those that have just been removed.
You see, language is fluid, and all that happens is that a new hyphen will appear to add clarity to a noun. For instance, the humble bee will be better defined and become the brown-and-yellow bumblebee. Simple, see.
Personally, I think it is bad news to mess with the hyphen. This is not because I am against compressing compoundnouns, (the more succinct and clean a language the better) but the galling thing is, the spelling changes have been driven by print designers' dislike of ugly punctuation. How lame.
Can we get our own back and ban any designers who insist on jazzing up text with different colored letters, or can we shoot head-line writers who mis-use capital letters? Just an off-the-wall idea to redress the balance.
What I never worked out, by the way, was why the perennial honey bee has never been separated by a hyphen ever in its existence. How unfair and inconsistent is that?
16000 words have been de-hyphenated in the latest short edition of the Oxford English dictionary. The cock-a-hoop linguists responsible are praising themselves for a job well done.
The bumble-bee, for instance, has now been condensed into one word, as have icecream and 15998 other compound nouns. However, this clear-out is only short-lived because linguistically value-adding compound nouns will soon appear auto-magically in the place of those that have just been removed.
You see, language is fluid, and all that happens is that a new hyphen will appear to add clarity to a noun. For instance, the humble bee will be better defined and become the brown-and-yellow bumblebee. Simple, see.
Personally, I think it is bad news to mess with the hyphen. This is not because I am against compressing compoundnouns, (the more succinct and clean a language the better) but the galling thing is, the spelling changes have been driven by print designers' dislike of ugly punctuation. How lame.
Can we get our own back and ban any designers who insist on jazzing up text with different colored letters, or can we shoot head-line writers who mis-use capital letters? Just an off-the-wall idea to redress the balance.
What I never worked out, by the way, was why the perennial honey bee has never been separated by a hyphen ever in its existence. How unfair and inconsistent is that?
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. JK Rowling cannot spell
18/07/07
Did anyone not see the Harry Potter early book release story yesterday? A distributor has been charged with deliberately uploading a scanned version of the upcoming bestseller onto the p2p file sharing networks. Umm, say some, but to me it sounds like that person should be applauded and the pissed off folks at Harry potter HQ should take a lesson in marketing, 2007?
Viral exposure, especially via the pipes and tubes of irreverent Bit torrent outfit The Pirate Bay is the way to increase sales of books, dummy. Unless you are into crawling under bed covers with a laptop or PC tower, the bendy, tactile book is king. There is almost nothing but good coming from the digital revelation of a storybook ahead of real life launch time.
Personally, I don't care if anyone knows the ending before they read the last Harry Potter book (I thought all kids read the last page first anyway!). However, what concerned me most was the spelling ability of JK Rowling.
On the TV last night the cameras were focussed on a scanned page with NINETEEN something or other in the title. And the first line underneath started "Ninteen..." Sorry, as a former grammar nazi and king speller, that aberration jumped off the screen and bit me on the nose. Is the world's richest writer illiterate? That would be sweet, wouldn't it!
And I don't buy any defense that it is some sort of Harry Potter-esque wizard spelling. Just like I can't abide reading books with dialog written in Gaelic or olde Englishe. I am a 21st century reader, so give me 21st century suburban English words, please. Muggles and broomsticks to you too, Ms Rowling.
PS, take no notice of me, I have never read any Harry Potter books, and I am too scared to put any graphics here, just in case I get sued.
We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search the keyphrase The Pirate Bay or web search. It is a win-win, perhaps!
Viral exposure, especially via the pipes and tubes of irreverent Bit torrent outfit The Pirate Bay is the way to increase sales of books, dummy. Unless you are into crawling under bed covers with a laptop or PC tower, the bendy, tactile book is king. There is almost nothing but good coming from the digital revelation of a storybook ahead of real life launch time.
JK Rowling cannot spell.
Personally, I don't care if anyone knows the ending before they read the last Harry Potter book (I thought all kids read the last page first anyway!). However, what concerned me most was the spelling ability of JK Rowling.
On the TV last night the cameras were focussed on a scanned page with NINETEEN something or other in the title. And the first line underneath started "Ninteen..." Sorry, as a former grammar nazi and king speller, that aberration jumped off the screen and bit me on the nose. Is the world's richest writer illiterate? That would be sweet, wouldn't it!
And I don't buy any defense that it is some sort of Harry Potter-esque wizard spelling. Just like I can't abide reading books with dialog written in Gaelic or olde Englishe. I am a 21st century reader, so give me 21st century suburban English words, please. Muggles and broomsticks to you too, Ms Rowling.
PS, take no notice of me, I have never read any Harry Potter books, and I am too scared to put any graphics here, just in case I get sued.
We've linked to several web search engines offering random payments & prizes! Click the icon & search the keyphrase The Pirate Bay or web search. It is a win-win, perhaps!
