I read an article once about disappearing hyphens. I am sorry that I cannot direct you to the article, but I don't remember where I read it, just the article. It said that when a new word is invented by combining two words it is always hyphenated and it has only a limited time as a hyphenated word. It seems to last as long as the word is not all that common. Once it becomes part of everyday conversation the hyphen disappears. An example that was given was base-ball. When the game was invented it was named with a hyphen and if you look at the early literature concerning it you will see the hyphen every time it is mentioned. The game became popular, though, and the word became popular too, so now you never see baseball spelled with a hyphen. Another example that was given was e-mail. It very rapidly lost the hyphen.
On 4/12/2012 11:17 PM, Cindy wrote:
The book I'm proofing now, first printed n 1992, has recrossed (the Potomac) as one word; in years passed it would have been hyphenated: re-crossed. My spell-checker identifies "recrossed" as an error. That's an example of why I like to proof with a print book at hand. smileCindyJoin us in celebrating our 10^th Anniversary! <http://blog.bookshare.org/2012/03/11/join-bookshares-worldwide-10th-anniversary-celebration/><http://blog.bookshare.org/2012/03/11/join-bookshares-worldwide-10th-anniversary-celebration/> TinyURL.com/752cyrs
