Stan Carey

Saw "nonhabit-forming" in a book and wanted to parse it (nonsensically) as "forming of non-habit".

I wrote about these tricky hyphens once: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/non-life-threatening-unselfconscious-hyphens/

#punctuation #hyphens #semantics #writing #EnglishUsage

Non-life-threatening unselfconscious hyphens

Happy the reader who is unselfconscious about hyphens. Or is it unself-conscious? Un-selfconscious? When we add a prefix to a word that’s already (sometimes) hyphenated, it’s not always obvious whe…

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May 4 at 10:00amWeb
Show threadsailboatMay 4
@stancarey "antiindustrialism" is so awkward! (and makes me wonder if the new yorker has an "iï" ligature)
Show threadStan CareyMay 4
@sailboat They use a hyphen in such cases, I think. Yeah, the -ii- isn't pretty! I've seen several examples since in various sources, but most editors see the sense in a hyphen there
Show threadBodhipaksaMay 4

@stancarey I enjoy your humor in these columns.

Constructions involving "unco-", as in "unco-operative," always throw me off.because "unco" is a Scots word, meaning strangely or exceedingly, as in Burns' "Address To The Unco Guid."

Show threadStan CareyMay 4
@bodhipaksa Thank you. I often forget to try to lighten the tone in those discussions, but I know it can help! That's interesting about "unco"; I see the DSL has a lovely long entry: https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/unco
Dictionaries of the Scots Language:: SND :: unco