this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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Today I Learned

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[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 16 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (3 children)

I like to use them when words create a unit of thought. Like line-of-sight, and such. It really helps readability. It prevents people from having to think too hard about certain sentences when it's ambiguous which words belong to what part of the sentence. Especially when the expression contains function words like "of".

However, I'm a fan of just making multiple words into compound words, like bumblebee. That doesn't work well with something like lineofsight, though.

As a side note, I wish we would being back the diaeresis in favor of hyphens in words like co-op. It used to be coöp, and that so much more fun. Or words like reëlect. Even when it's not abbreviated, the diaeresis makes it more obvious to readers how coöperative is pronounced. Or any other time where two vowels in a row are pronounced separately.

[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I think you would be more convincing if you spelled "line of sight" correctly

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

Good catch. I fixed it.

[–] MBM@lemmings.world 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Albeit always confuses me. Albeït is so much better.

[–] Cort@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago (2 children)
[–] Revan343@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] AtariDump@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Da, comrade.

[–] giantsorbiting@lemm.ee 3 points 10 hours ago

trailblazers in space travel

[–] elbarto777@lemmy.world 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

Would the dieresis be placed on top of the s in lineöfsight? Or would it be for vowels only?

Also, by your coöperative pronunciation example, people would be mispronouncing reëlect.

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

Also, by your coöperative pronunciation example, people would be mispronouncing reëlect.

I'm not sure what you mean.

It's pronounced co-operative and re-elect. Coöp needs it to not sound lime "coop" as in chicken coop. Reëlect needs it to not sound like "reel" as in fishing reel.

[–] CrayonRosary@lemmy.world 3 points 12 hours ago

It's vowels only, and that's funny. I hadn't thought about it for my hypothetical "lineofsite" word.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 3 points 9 hours ago
[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

You should use replace the - with space or nothing at random

icecream ice cream ice-cream

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Bīng Qí Lín Bing Chilling BingChilling Bing-Chilling

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Nah, just turn the first word into an adjective.

"Iced cream" sounds far more sophisticated than boring ice cream.

[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 1 points 10 hours ago

Or add - to words that don-t need-it

Iced-cream

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 12 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I'm gonna argue with the title.

Obsolete means no longer of use, in a general sense.

Just because people don't know that the tool is there, or don't know how to apply it, doesn't mean it's obsolete. Hyphenation still has its original utility, it helps communicate in writing what is evident in speech.

I get what they mean, but the title is not accurate to the rest of the article, imo.

[–] Fredselfish@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Tell that to Word it always wants to auto contact my words to do that.

[–] witty_username@feddit.nl 39 points 20 hours ago (1 children)
[–] HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip 13 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Good ol' #37.

[–] JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I was taught that English doesn’t have written accents. Horsepoo. People will often go out of their way to write re-elect instead of reëlect, for example. Just use your language properly, please.

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

You think we (Americans) are smart enough for that?

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 11 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Take a second to actually read this one. It's pretty short and sweet. It's also from 2007, and talks about nouns (maybe compound nouns) that we really don't think and probably never knew were hyphenated. It's not about the use we typically see today.

As an aside, I've noticed people start hyphenating in weird ways, like "I've been at this job for 7-years"

[–] Pandemanium@lemm.ee 6 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I think at this point MS Word automatically recommends a hyphen after any number + quantifier combo. One time it wanted me to correct "three armed guards" to "three-armed guards" which would have changed the meaning considerably.

The number of times MS autocorrect suggests incorrect changes to grammar is laughably high, and most people just blindly follow the suggestions.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

I fucking hate autocorrect. I mean to say "its" a lot more often than I mean to say "it's", but Gboard on my phone tries to change it to the latter almost every time.

I say "almost" because it did it the first time in the above sentence, but not the second time, so it managed to make the wrong guess for both of them. Goddamn useless trash -- Markov can suck it!

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Three-armed guards would probably be in very high demand, depending how functional the extra arm was

[–] ewenak@jlai.lu 2 points 19 hours ago

Could the strange hyphenation be due to the influence of their mother tongue? I don't know if there is any language that does it like that, but it seems plausible.

[–] Metostopholes@midwest.social 73 points 1 day ago

"Printed writing is very much design-led these days in adverts and Web sites, and people feel that hyphens mess up the look of a nice bit of typography," he said. "The hyphen is seen as messy looking and old-fashioned."

I see the dictionary editor they quoted is still fighting back.

[–] Hawke@lemmy.world 31 points 1 day ago

You mis-spelled “to-day”.

[–] griff@lemmings.world 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)

there are times when punctuation is actually useful for clarification!

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 16 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

And capitals for readability.

[–] pixeltree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 17 hours ago

yeah, without them capitalizing that first t their comment is completely unreadable

[–] kobra@lemm.ee 2 points 17 hours ago

hyphens are dead, capitalization is next.

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[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (4 children)

A question from a non-native speaker: Is there a definitve guide on American punctuation somewhere? I always wonder about American use of punctuation inside single quotes when quoting a term instead of a sentence, and some other cases where I see different intepretations of punctuation.

[–] marron12@lemmy.world 15 points 21 hours ago

There are different ones for different kinds of writing (general, academic, journalism, and more). Chicago Manual of Style is one of the general ones. It's good, and considered authoritative, but you have to buy a copy or an online subscription.

A free one that I like is Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab from a university). It's easy to understand and has good info.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 8 points 23 hours ago (4 children)

The most commonly used tool for referencing English grammar that I know of is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 hours ago

That's good for some general writing tips, but S&W made plenty of their own errors in the book and had ambiguous or wrong explanations for various topics (IIRC they don't seem to know what passive voice actually is).

I wouldn't recommend it for someone looking for solid info about grammar itself.

[–] slickgoat@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago

That takes me back. That was the standard reference for my journalism degree 35 years ago. I still have it.

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[–] hilliard@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

they are a bit old-fashioned

[–] jimmy90@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

is old fashioned non-hyphenated?

like red tree

[–] Stovetop@lemmy.world 7 points 19 hours ago

My experience is more "feels" than fact I suppose, but I've always seen it that any adjective or noun playing adverb to another adjective or participle should be hyphenated to the word it describes.

Red-hot coals (coals that are hot to the point of being red)

Red hot coals (coals that are both hot and red)

Ruby-red shoes (shoes that are as red as rubies)

Ruby red shoes (ruby shoes that are red)

Smooth-talking rogue (a rogue who talks smoothly)

Smooth talking rogue (a smooth rogue who talks)

Bamboo-eating panda (a panda who eats bamboo)

Bamboo eating panda (bamboo is eating a panda)

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