Well, it's the OED, and their hyphen rules have always been a little different. You're right about those two, though. We lost those hyphens a long time ago.
Well thank god! I thought I was just stoopid, having never thought those words would be hyphenated.
I don't text message, but I rarely think of ANY word (unless its like that twenty-odd example) as hyphenated. Mostly just for clarification reasons. (hence, my not being a beta.)
You're not stoopid. And you write rather well, srsly.
It makes sense to lose the hypen in compound words that are actually two nouns. But when it's an adjective-noun combo, it really stands out for me when someone leaves it out. I know, I'm a nitpicker, but...the dark haired man. Is he dark and hairy, or does he have dark hair?
Obviously I need to get a life, and what really jerks my chain is that all these changes are hidden in the OED. You can't access that without subscribing--with real money. Like, yeah, us grammar uppity-ups have changed the rules, and guess what?! You can't see them--they're sooper seekrit!
Hehe, I can see how you'd think that. For the U.S., many of these changes are already convention in American English. As for the OED, I have to wonder, cause you have to pay to use this online, and I sure as hell don't have a hard copy.
I have the OED, but I bought it two years ago, and I don't think I'll buy another one soon, so I'll just stick with the old spelling. After all, there's no English Academy like the Académie française to tell us what to do.
lol there's no use having the OED when language is constantly evolving.. and IMO, nor should we have something like l'Académie française - language is SUPPOSED to evolve - it's human linguistic nature.
oh one more thing - the OED changes depending on usage in the language itself - the grammar freaks didn't decide to change it, the people who speak the language already have. And all but one or two of the words listed were already that way in American English.
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I don't text message, but I rarely think of ANY word (unless its like that twenty-odd example) as hyphenated. Mostly just for clarification reasons. (hence, my not being a beta.)
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It makes sense to lose the hypen in compound words that are actually two nouns. But when it's an adjective-noun combo, it really stands out for me when someone leaves it out. I know, I'm a nitpicker, but...the dark haired man. Is he dark and hairy, or does he have dark hair?
Obviously I need to get a life, and what really jerks my chain is that all these changes are hidden in the OED. You can't access that without subscribing--with real money. Like, yeah, us grammar uppity-ups have changed the rules, and guess what?! You can't see them--they're sooper seekrit!
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Any chance of them phasing out the semi-colon, do you think?
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