Death of a Hyphen
I recently received news that the Chicago Manual of Style—the editing guide used by most of my publishers—has decreed that email shall no longer be spelled with a hyphen. This comes fast on the news that goodbye, too, shall henceforth be unhyphenated.
And there was much rejoicing in the realm.
I am such a nerd that I get into impassioned discussions with my friends about things like Oxford commas (I’m for them) and when foreign phrases should and should not be italicized. So the demise of a hyphen or two is big news. Incidentally, CMOS also decided that internet is no longer capitalized, which has also been cause for a minor celebration.
Seriously, who gets all hot and bothered over all those little dots and squiggles? I do.
As an author, I think of words as vehicles. Some of them are plain and serviceable, the Ford Focuses (Foci?) of literature. Some are clunky. Some antique. Some bulky and muscular. Some flashy and exotic. But whether I’m writing a Ram 3500 or a Maserati, that vehicle isn’t going to get far without fuel. And that’s what punctuation and grammar are—fuel that makes our words run smoothly. (Yes, I am aware that a few authors can make their prose zoom beautifully with unusual or rare orthography. But most of us are neither e e cummings nor William Faulkner.)
When I pull up to the pump to fill my tank, it’s a good idea if I can tell what I’m buying. I once owned a car, for example, that hated ethanol with a passion and would protest wildly if forced to consume it. So it was lucky for me that gasoline carries standardized labels informing us what type it is. Language mechanics are like that. The rules may often seem arbitrary, but having standardized rules keeps our writing operating the way we want it to.
Consider, for instance, a recent failure in punctuation. In Maine, the preference in legislative acts is to omit the Oxford comma. This can lead to a lack of clarity, which recently triggered a court ruling that will likely result in a dairy handing over $10 million in overtime pay to truck drivers. (Punctuation and law joined together in one news item; I am a happy camper.)
Okay, then. Language rules are a Good Thing. But they can also be really frustrating, mostly because there are so damned many of them and they’re so specific. Have you seen how big CMOS is? It takes up a significant portion of bookshelf real estate. I have spent countless hours discussing these rules with my editors. Sometimes the rules lack internal consistency. In one of my novellas, I struggled with the fact that hyphenation rules for grown-up, fuckup, and screw up are different from each other and vary depending whether the word’s being used as adjective, noun, or verb. We have debated when army ought to be capitalized, the presence or absence of a comma before the word because, and the implications of em dashes versus semicolons. (Oh, and if you’re curious about the difference between en dashes and hyphens, here you go.)
On the other hand, sometimes language mechanics send us into geeky, giddy little celebrations. Like recently, when one of my manuscripts referenced an Oregon city called The Dalles and we realized that it was one of the rare occasions in which CMOS (8.44) allows us to capitalize the. Let the confetti and party balloons commence!
As much as I love this stuff, I am generally happy when the rules get simplified—as long as clarity isn’t sacrificed, of course. Nobody wanted or needed that ugly little hyphen in email. If we’re going to put one in goodbye, heck, why not stick to the old-style God b’w’y (God be with ye, but which looks like a name in a fantasy novel, I think). And as for that now-defunct capital I in Internet, good riddance. We don’t write Radio or Movies. While we’re at it, can we switch from TV to tv?
So ding-dong, another couple of hyphens are dead. As Plautus wrote (probably without any punctuation at all, because that’s how the Romans rolled), “Hoc agitemus convivium vino ut sermone suavi.” Let us celebrate with wine and sweet words.
Do you have a particularly favorite or detested grammar or language mechanics rule? Please share! Personally, I have a mostly unrequited affinity for semicolons.
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Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in modern-day Oregon. Her heroes are hipster architect werewolves, housekeepers, maimed giants, and conflicted graduate students. They’re usually flawed, they often encounter terrible obstacles, but they always find love.
After having migrated back and forth across the western two-thirds of the United States, Kim calls the boring part of California home. She lives there with her husband, her two daughters, and her day job as a university professor, but escapes as often as possible via car, train, plane, or boat. This may explain why her characters often seem to be in transit as well. She dreams of traveling and writing full-time.
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Thanks for your post. Very enlightning. It is difficult to learn all the rules, so I mostly stick with the things I know and the rest I look for in the dictionary.
I rely heavily on my editors to keep me on the right path!
Here I thought that I was the only person left who advocates the semicolon! Thanks for the post.
You’re very welcome. And rah rah, semicolons!
We can create a club to promote the semicolon! I actually use them quite a lot. Thank you for the post, Kim. Languages evolve, and so must do grammar rules. I’m so glad Old English declinations are fine for good!
I like the idea of a semicolon fan club! And having studied Latin and Russian, I am also glad we ditched those declensions.
Thanks for the post. I’m surprised those hyphens were still around. Another punctuation that needs to bite the dust (it generally has, but for oldtimers, like me), is the oxford comma. Let it pass.
No! I love the Oxford comma! 🙂 I think it generally adds clarity.
A question – how much as an author, do you attend to editing such things as punctuation, vs. letting the “editor” do it? Whenever I write, granted I don’t have an editor, but I pay close attention to that, but I’m curious how that works for you.
I try really hard to get things right while I’m writing, partly because I want to learn the correct ways and partly because I don’t want to drive my beloved editors insane. I keep a copy of CMOS handy and look things up. But if I get really stuck, I don’t spend forever on it.
Thanks for the post. I don’t usually use the hyphen for email or goodbye so I’m unaffected by the decree. In fact I don’t feel hypen’s have been used that often, it’s no wonder it got axed.
I also haven’t been using those hyphens in informal writing. But my publishers follow CMOS, so until now I’ve had to use them for my books. No more!
Language is so beautifully complex that can drive you crazy. It does that to me. I personally have a complicated relationship with grammar and language mechanics rules, I can’t tell the differences sometimes and re-learning the basics is not as easy as when you’re a kid.
It’s really hard to learn all the tiny little language rules. In my case, that’s what editors are for! 🙂
I love semicolons and the Oxford comma, so…
My people!