Anyway, it's the first Wednesday of March, which means the Insecure Writer's Support Group, where once a month I'm supposed to write about some writing neurosis. Easy enough.
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| You can see how thrilled I am by this. |
I was glad then for the Kindle's on-board dictionary when reading so I could figure out which words should be hyphenated and which ones should not. The annoying thing is a lot of these are words you and I use all the time and never think about how to spell. Words like grown-up, half-hour, and machine gun. Then are other words you use and have little opportunity to spell, like smart-ass.
After a while it's easy to start feeling like a complete dumb-ass when it comes to the English language. Really, I always got A's in English class and I've read a lot of books, so you think some of this would have slipped into my brain by osmosis if nothing else.
It's small consolation to think that hyphenation and other rules change over time. If you read an old book they'll have hi-jinks instead of hijinks. Somewhere along the way we lost the hyphen. I remember when reading John Updike books he was still old-school enough to put the umlaut (is that what they call that one that's two dots that go over a letter?) over the first O in cooperate. Still, after a while it's enough to make me feel like a 12:00 blinker as Offutt would say.
Yes, two dots over a letter is an umlaut - like for the band Queensryche. Which I can't properly show here as the umlaut isn't on my keyboard...
ReplyDeleteGrammar. I'm not a huge fan of it because even amongs experts there is strong disagreement regarding the use of commas, semi-colons and whatever other form of word, clause, or type of punctuation to use. I tend to just do what I feel and hope no one calls me to task on it. That rarely works out for me.
ReplyDeleteFor punctuation, I think it's good to be consistent within your own writing. Hyphenated words get me too. And I rely more and more on spell check, which doesn't recognize the word 'internet' - what's with that?
ReplyDeleteI got that book Grammer Snobs Are Big Meanies but I find even that for inspiration doesn't make me love it any more.
ReplyDeleteWell, there is certainly variation. I think consistent use of any punctuation within a work is what's most important.
ReplyDeleteAs you say, fashions change in punctuation - it can be a complete minefield for us older folks in today's modern world. I upset a lot of folks with my traditional dialogue punctuation and had to change it throughout the book - it looks so odd to me but is apparently correct for modern reader.
ReplyDeleteHappy Hyphenation
Emma
Tonja: I think your spellchecker, like me, isn't sure this "Internet" thing is going to hang around once the fad wears out. Or, to quote Homer Simpson: "The Internet? Is that still around?"
ReplyDeleteThe New Yorker does that thing with the umlauts, at least on the Kindle. I always assumed it was because they wanted to make sure the consecutive letters were seen as two letters on an e-reader. Now I find out it's all Updike?
I didn't even know that there were rules about hyphenating some words. In particular, I thought dumbass was one word, but that's probably because Updike never schooled me on how to spell it.
TO bring this comment full circle, I once mentioned on a post on The Best Of Everything how they seemed to overuse hyphens in the 17th and 18th centuries
(http://www.troublewithroy.com/2010/07/best-songs-that-make-absolutely-no.html)
and that led me to write a poem called "Inside Emily's Mind"
I have to say--
It-- actually looks with those hyphens
As though--
it means -- something
Maybe Emily was really --
On-- to something.
I submitted that to The New Yorker, but they rejected it. I later wrote a poem about getting rejected by The New Yorker:
http://www.thinkingthelions.com/2010/11/poem-is-poor-tool-for-revenge-fridays.html
And BAM! That is how you comment on a blog. Also, I am still working on that Ode To Cheeseburgers but an Ode is a very difficult thing to write, so it's slow going.
The good thing with hyphens is that it's never necessarily wrong to leave them out. It's just wrong to put them into words that don't need them.
ReplyDeleteIn my book 'The League of Punctuation' would not be the good guys, unless of course they came in the night and corrected mine. I struggle with where to put the commas, now you tell me about hyphens. And umlaut's; are you kidding me? That sounds like something you shouldn't talk about in polite conversation. Am I the dumb-ass?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the fun post. Nice to meet you Bulldog. Be warned, I'll be back.
I'm sure I always use hyphens incorrectly, but I call it 'creative license'. Come to think of it, I have the same attitude to semi-colons - now there's a great punctuation mark!
ReplyDeleteAnd to make this worse it you try to use a spell/grammar checker they may be wrong or not "know" the word.
ReplyDeleteBleck!
I agree. Hypen's are tricky things. Usually I realize when to check if a word needs a hypen or not. I remember being surprised about 6 years ago at finding out I didn't need a hypen for the word: workaholic.
ReplyDeleteI'm intuitive when it comes to these kinds of things, as well well-educated (see there, I used a hyphen,) but I don't always get it right, and neither do other writers or editors, or even publishers, for that matter. There are all kinds of errors in published works these days. It represents the long-forgotten (ooh, I did it again) rules of (American) English, which at best, are convoluted and absurd.
ReplyDeletehahaha 12:00 blinker. You liked that eh? I also struggle with hyphens.
ReplyDeleteI hyphenate everything. Any word-combo I want. Cuz I'm a writer and writers are like the mutant genes that alter the DNA of language. Shakespeare made up over 17,000 words. I like to feel that I can make up at least half a dozen and get away with it. :P
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, I added an extra zero to the number of words he made up. It's more like 1700. Oops. I'm better at English than I am at math. :)
DeleteHyphens are definitely tough and I rely on spell check all the time. I tend to worry more about where I put the comma and forget about the hyphen. I like to use the semi-colon. It doesn't seem as fiendish as the other punctuation villains. But once you start adding umlauts, it's all Greek to me.
ReplyDelete