HERE’S A HOWDY-DO!

This call goes out to my fellow-grammarians, world-wide… please join me (hyphenate me?) in my fight-back against the hi-tech, web-led demise of the -.(Yes, kiddies, it’s called, properly, a hyphen, not a dash. Exceptions are, or should be, the province of the printing trade and crossword compilers.)

While sifting through e-mails and drinking my post-breakfast coffee, my eye was caught by a little gem at the Reuters site.

Of course languages evolve to absorb new words and, sometimes, to lose old-fashioned ones! I have no problem with this. Indeed, part of my fascination with words is the complex route most words have taken throughout history.

No, my quibble is that this current change is fad-driven. Already, we have a generation of kids whose use of cell-phones is producing muscular thumbs and lousy spelling. Removing hyphens simply to accommodate technology is, I think, the thin end of a wedge. I can imagine someone saying, in the not-too-distant future, that we may as well eliminate the apostrophe ’cause no-one knows how to use it these days.

Our ancestors made a huge sacrifice for oral and written language. Please don’t let the dictionary-compilers* kow-tow to the nerdy masses!

Okay, I managed to get in a few hyphens that I could have avoided. And maybe it’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but I really do like my hyphens!

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This was the nest site chosen by a dopey dove…

…as you can see, not the most palatial of homes!

Apparently, the dove finally saw it that way, too. The tv aerial is once more just an aerial. I don’t know where the doves are nesting now, but there are plenty of good sites available to them.

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Now for a clue, a hint, an indication…The Blogiversary Lucky Dip will be a small piece of (highly-collectible!) art. Perhaps a lino print, like this. Or perhaps something else.

Remember, folks, all you have to do is leave a comment on the anniversary post. Me? Well, I have to get cracking and create, don’t I?

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*Just a foot-note…if you would like to know more about the Oxford Dictionary, I suggest you read “The Surgeon of Crowthorne” by Simon Winchester. I also suggest you keep the Kleenex handy.