Pages

Thursday, July 14, 2011

A cure for Anal Ysis

Well, I know all you Word Lady fans have just been dying for another punctuation blog post ever since I wrote about commas, so here it is: my big punctuation pet peeve: badly used hyphens when breaking words at the end of a line. Many of you are thinking, "But my computer does that for me!" Ha! If you trust your computer, you will end up with some very user-unfriendly word breaks. I have a little collection of them; please feel free to let me know about others you have come across.
Sometimes even a technically correct word break, which follows the syllabication of the word, ends up leading the poor reader astray.

This sounds like a nasty affliction:  anal-
ysis

There's the to-and-fro-ing anti-pro-
ject

the mythical leg-
end

But there are others where the computer obviously has no clue where the syllables are in English:

trai-
psing

(sounds like some kind of Chinese dish served in a cafeteria)

indo-
ctrination

(possibly something like Sino-ctrination?)

loose-
ned

(God forbid that Loose Ned should contract Anal Ysis!)

In fact, some newspapers break off the past tense -ed even on one-syllable words, like hop-
ped

(It gives a very High Anglican feel to reading the newspaper!)

There is the very frequent re-
ally

and its cousin, which I just saw this week: rear-
rest

Save Loose Ned from Anal Ysis and from being rear rested! Don't let your computer do your word breaks for you.

For more on hyphenation, visit this post and this one.

P.S. If you find the English language fascinating, you might enjoy regular updates about English usage and word origins from Wordlady. Receive every new post delivered right to your inbox! If you are not already subscribed, you can either:

use the subscribe window at the top of this page
OR
(if you are reading this on a mobile device): send me an email with the subject line SUBSCRIBE at wordlady.barber@gmail.com

Privacy policy: we will not sell, rent, or give your name or address to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any point.


Follow me on twitter: @thewordlady


8 comments:

  1. The-
    rapist.

    The classic, always memorable example of why your computer is not always right.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brilliant example, Deb. Thanks for posting!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My favorite. My title is Cognition The rapist. Describes how you feel when your brain has done you in. :)

      Delete
  3. Harking back to the days as a copy editor and writer (by candlelight, I seem to remember), there were good reasons for not hyphenatintg a word at the end of a line: not only did you avoid amusing or confusing readers but, most importantly, you didn't have to know the rules of hyphenation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. as good a reason as any, Charlie! :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. My favourite was always mans-
    laughter
    Al R, a retired copy editor

    ReplyDelete
  6. How about wee-
    knight

    ReplyDelete