Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T09:22:06.902Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The intrusive hyphen is everywhere

Is seemingly indiscriminate hyphen use symptomatic of current language change?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2019

John E. Booth
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When can a hyphen be described as ‘intrusive’? As with many other ‘rules’ of grammar and of punctuation, use of the hyphen is limited to a specific syntactical context. Hence, to use a hyphen where it should not be used makes it intrusive. Just like the apostrophe, it cannot be used arbitrarily. There is, for instance, a tattooist parlour in the English town of Oldham whose shopfront advertises Inkcredible Tatoo's (sic) and, with it, both the owner's or owners’ ability to play on words in writing and their inability to sign a plural form correctly – the rule being that apostrophes are not used to mark the plural of either common or proper nouns in written English.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 36 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bloom, J. 2017. ‘Cars for cheese – why a free trade deal may not be free.’ Online at <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40792654> (Accessed January 29, 2019).+(Accessed+January+29,+2019).>Google Scholar
Brown, E. 2001. ‘Introduction.’ In Dick, P. K., The Man in the High Castle. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Also online at <https://ericbrown.co.uk/introductions/> (Accessed March 03).+(Accessed+March+03).>Google Scholar
Bybee, J. 2015. Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chapman, D. 2010. ‘Bad Ideas in the History of English Usage.’ In Cloutier, R. A. et al. (eds.), Studies in the History of the English Language V: Variation and Change in English Grammar and Lexicon: Contemporary Approaches. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. 2012. Spell It Out: The Singular Story of English Spelling. London: Profile Books.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Engelbert, C. 2017. ‘Driverless cars and trucks don't mean mass unemployment – they mean new kinds of jobs.’ Quartz. Online at <https://qz.com/1041603/driverless-cars-and-trucks-dont-mean-mass-unemployment-they-mean-new-kinds-of-jobs/> (Accessed January 29, 2019).+(Accessed+January+29,+2019).>Google Scholar
GrammarBook.com. 2018. ‘Hyphens.’ Online at <https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp> (Accessed January 29, 2019).+(Accessed+January+29,+2019).>Google Scholar
Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. 1994. A Communicative Grammar of English. 2nd edn. London & New York: Longman.Google Scholar
McGrath, A. 2005. Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
michaellewiswrites.com. 2012. Online at <http://michaellewiswrites.com/#the-coming-storm> (Accessed January 29, 2019).+(Accessed+January+29,+2019).>Google Scholar
Trask, R. L. 2010. Why Do Languages Change? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar