- From: Jonathan Rees <jar@creativecommons.org>
- Date: Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:42:51 -0400
- To: Ian Horrocks <ian.horrocks@comlab.ox.ac.uk>
- Cc: Daniel Barclay <daniel@fgm.com>, public-owl-comments@w3.org
On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:57 PM, Ian Horrocks<ian.horrocks@comlab.ox.ac.uk> wrote: > Regarding "side-effect", the hyphenated form is in the OED [2], so we didn't > change it. I'm sorry, but this is just wrong, regardless of what the OED says. Check any manual of style and you'll learn that while hyphens are used to form compound adjectives and adverbs, they are not used for compound nouns (or at least not since the 19th century). In this case there are many lines of evidence that "side effect" is correct. I suggest you check the Wikipedia or US GPO manuals of style (both online), or http://sites.google.com/site/spellingguide/Home/the-hyphen-in-spelling-1 , for expositions of the general principle. For an indication of prevailing practice see the Wikipedia entry for "side effect", or do a Google search for "side effect". An amusing example is http://www.drugs.com/sfx/hyphen-hd-side-effects.html ... Jonathan
Received on Wednesday, 16 September 2009 00:43:38 UTC