quote: LONDON (Reuters) - About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.
Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly.
And if you've got a problem, don't be such a crybaby (formerly cry-baby).
Nearly all the words they list in the article are those I've never hyphenated anyway. But then again, I'm not a Brit.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
I have never seen "ice cream" hyphenated before. Interesting.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
NOOOOOOO!!!!! I hyphen a lot, so this is bad news for me.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Yay! I'm a fan of wordscompoundedeventoridiculouslengthslikeingerman!
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I read that, Anne Kate, and immediately thought, "Who's Ingerman?"
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
So did I - whoops.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: I have never seen "ice cream" hyphenated before. Interesting.
When did they get rid of the "d" in iced cream? Does this bode ill for iced tea?
And when will eventhough hit the dictionary?
On the bright side, for those of you who miss the hyphens, you can still get hyphens in some of those if they're at the end of the line and you have automatic hyphenation turned on.
Posted by Lisa (Member # 8384) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I read that, Anne Kate, and immediately thought, "Who's Ingerman?"
Me, too.
Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :
So did I, and took a few minutes to realize why Tom stopped thinking it.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Am I the only person who didn't read it that way?
Posted by Lissande (Member # 350) on :
Yes. Sorry. Posted by dantesparadigm (Member # 8756) on :
I didn't, but that's probably only because I got hung up on ridiculous lengths.
Posted by Puffy Treat (Member # 7210) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lisa: When did they get rid of the "d" in iced cream? Does this bode ill for iced tea?
In my lifetime (I'm 31) I've -always- seen it referred to as simply "ice tea". Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Maybe wordsCompoundedEvenToRidiculousLengthsLikeInGerman should be written in camel case, yet somehow the difficulty in parsing is part of the charm, so I think not. Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I read that, Anne Kate, and immediately thought, "Who's Ingerman?"
Count me along with those who started wondering about Ingerman.
Posted by Zanejin (Member # 6318) on :
Language really evolves, eh? I still use hyphens where reasonable just to improve legibility and out of habit, but now that even Oxford is changing its dictionary, I might feel an urge to follow.
Posted by calaban (Member # 2516) on :
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if thousands of punctuations suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
The ingerman part got me for a second too. Until I noticed that the conglomeration reminded me of my german class...drr.
Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
All right. Ever willing to play the fool, I will ask the dumb question. What does that ending mean if not "like Ingerman"? Does the fact that I know absolutely no German make that question any less foolish?
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
... like in the German language, I meant. Posted by Uprooted (Member # 8353) on :
Blushing furiously, that is.
Sometimes my brain gets so stuck on first interpretations that I can't see new ones unless they are quite literally spelled out for me -- no amount of hints in this thread, even though I knew we were talking about the German language, let me see that as "like in German" once "like Ingerman" was in my head.
*runs off with tail between legs*
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
It's okay, nobody speaks this languagewhereweruntogetherallthewords yet besides a few friends and I. Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zanejin: Language really evolves, eh? I still use hyphens where reasonable just to improve legibility and out of habit, but now that even Oxford is changing its dictionary, I might feel an urge to follow.
I think you've got it backwards. Oxford updated the dictionary to more closely follow actual usage. They're not trying to lead usage, because that's not what dictionaries do.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
I am waiting for them to add "alot".
Posted by brojack17 (Member # 9189) on :
I don't see why the internet made it an issue.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Yay! I'm a fan of wordscompoundedeventoridiculouslengthslikeingerman!
I can practically hear aspectre rejoicing.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
Lyrhawn, I don't get it. Why would aspectre rejoice? (Is it sarcasm?)
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Originally posted by brojack17: I don't see why the internet made it an issue.
I don't think it did. I think people just love to blame the internet for the alleged dumbing down of the language.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
Don't hyphens just disappear as words get normalized into the language? Or was that a you're-a-writer-but-not-much-of-a-linguist type of question?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Lyrhawn, I don't get it. Why would aspectre rejoice? (Is it sarcasm?)
Heh, mildly. Have you read one of his posts lately...or ever?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
It seemed like a reasonable request to me.
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Lyrhawn, I don't get it. Why would aspectre rejoice? (Is it sarcasm?)
Heh, mildly. Have you read one of his posts lately...or ever?
(There's ampleevidence to conclude that hiskeyboard doesn't have a spacebar.) Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
I use hyphens (well, dashes) all the time -- keeps my thoughts separate.
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