RE: [sdw] Re-charter W3C/OGC working group (#1445)

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Hi Frans,
It is good to hear from you.

Good question too. It is interesting that currently the only responses are from non-native English speakers!

The Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1879 and is updated continually. The Shorter OED was first compiled in 1923 and has been reprinted numerous times with corrections. Unfortunately my paper version is 1978!   But the fully up to date, full OED is online, with limited free access.

Spatiotemporal is illustrated by 8 examples, from 1912 to 2012, at https://www.oed.com/search/advanced/Quotations?textTermText0=spatiotemporal&textTermOpt0=QuotText&page=1&sortOption=DateOldFirst


Spatio-temporal is illustrated by 25 examples from 1900 to 2008, at https://www.oed.com/search/advanced/Quotations?textTermText0=spatio-temporal&textTermOpt0=QuotText&page=1&sortOption=DateOldFirst


The OED is strictly an observer of the English language and does not profess to set any rules. I think I will stick with the OED observed bias for the hyphenated version, rather than Google’s preferences, just as I never accepted Microsoft Word’s preferences (e.g. ‘liase’ instead of ‘liaise’) I don’t mind being considered old-fashioned. And the hyphen gives your brain and fingers a respite during sustained typing.

Cheers, Chris




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From: Frans Knibbe <fjknibbe@gmail.com>
Sent: 17 January 2025 20:48
To: Chris Little via GitHub <sysbot+gh@w3.org>
Cc: public-sdwig@w3.org
Subject: Re: [sdw] Re-charter W3C/OGC working group (#1445)


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An interesting question!
According to wikipedia<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyphen>, there aren't  any strict rules for hyphenation in cases like this. The same article does mention that hyphenation is gradually disappearing from the English language. Also, it looks like wikipedia articles using the word 'spatiotemporal' form a majority. Examples are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatiotemporal_database and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatiotemporal_pattern. On the other hand, there is this article<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial%E2%80%93temporal_reasoning> that uses the term 'spatial-temporal' (not spatio- but spatial- !).
Another telling thing is that my Google search autocorrects (auto-corrects?) the spelling 'spatio-temporal' to 'spatiotemporal'. Merriam-Webster<https://www.merriam-webster.com/> does the same thing.
My short research seems to tell me that there is no rule set in stone, but that spatiotemporal is the more modern and popular spelling. Chris, how old are the paper dictionaries you have consulted?

Regards,
Frans

Op do 16 jan 2025 om 12:02 schreef Chris Little via GitHub <sysbot+gh@w3.org<mailto:sysbot%2Bgh@w3.org>>:
@dr-shorthair Is there a consensus on `spatiotemporal` versus `spatio-temporal`? I think this is a rather minor but important point!

1. Wikipedia seems to have only a short, older, article on the former portmanteau.
2. Paper dictionaries seem to prefer the latter, as they view it as a neologism.
3. The OGC API-EDR standard was sloppily split between both, and we've just done an edit to go for the hyphenated latter, as it seemed better English English, and doesn't seem to cause any problems with editting tools or search engines.

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