![]() ![]() I applaud the leap-frog elements joining forces as leapfrog. But pigeon-hole is now pigeonhole, which looks a bit crowded to me, like a subway car at rush hour (or is it rush-hour?). Kevorkian.)Īs a result of this decline, these changes became desirable:įig-leaf is now fig leaf. (If 5 percent becomes the tipping point for decline unto death, look over your shoulder for Dr. According to Oxford University Press project editor Angus Stevenson - and ain’t that a great name for a wordsmith, laddie - there has been a 5 percent decline in the use of hyphens over the past 30 years. The reason the Brits give for disassembling their Hyphen Nation is that old lexical bugaboo: a shift in usage. I say “hardly ever” because when I looked up a certain word at the beginning of this paragraph, I was chagrined to see that no-see-um had been cobbled together not by one but T-W-O hyphens. Moreover, the hyphen is hardly ever necessary. The hyphen is the no-see-um of the language landscape, barely visible when alone, but pestilent in swarms on the page. ![]() News has arrived from across the sea that the new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has hacked the hyphens off of 16,000 or so words. Remember Anne Robinson, that horrid “You are the weakest link” woman, the “Queen of Mean,” who looked and sounded like the love child of a vampire and a concentration camp commandant? And what about all those plump British spit-spot TV nannies brought to America to whip our children into shape?īenny Hill, Posh Spice, and soccer hooligans notwithstanding, we Americans think of the English as makers of a more advanced civilization. Have you noticed how the effects of the American Revolution are being reversed by an invasion of British scolds? The most famous, of course, is Simon Cowell, the imperious judge on “American Idol” (“Go find your vocal coach and ask for a refund.”) It now seems that every talent show needs its cranky Brit on the bench. ![]()
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