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).
Some of the 16,000 hyphenation changes in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, sixth edition:Formerly hyphenated words split in two:
fig leaf, hobby horse, ice cream, pin money, pot belly, test tube, water bedFormerly hyphenated words unified in one:
bumblebee, chickpea, crybaby , leapfrog, logjam, lowlife, pigeonhole, touchline, waterborne
3 comments:
I think you can blame most of this on branding and product labeling. I don't think I have ever purchased a container of Breyer's Ice-Cream. And the can of legumes I opened last week and the hummus ingredients both read chickpea.
I agree. But I think texting is ... well, doing more harm to the English language.
:)
Mike
http://somethingaboutparenting.typepad.com/
http://www.mikeleonen.com/
Very interesting!
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