Google
 

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Thousands of hyphens perish as English marches on

LONDON (Reuters) - About 16,000 words have succumbed to pressures of the Internet age and lost their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.

Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly.

And if you've got a problem, don't be such a crybaby (formerly cry-baby).

The hyphen has been squeezed as informal ways of communicating, honed in text messages and emails, spread on Web sites and seep into newspapers and books...

continues at:

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSHAR15384620070921?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews

No comments: