tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post6458580346670114045..comments2024-03-27T16:02:25.334-05:00Comments on Orange Crate Art: Mr. Hyphen and e-mailMichael Leddyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05547732736861224886noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-56900521343018433642015-12-16T12:44:46.622-06:002015-12-16T12:44:46.622-06:00That sounds einteresting!That sounds einteresting!Michael Leddyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05547732736861224886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-10206011817747014402015-12-16T11:32:09.894-06:002015-12-16T11:32:09.894-06:00Hm. A random thought: maybe the meaning of the pre...Hm. A random thought: maybe the meaning of the prefix "e" will expand to mean anything web related...<br />So, for instance "eirritating" could mean something that annoys you on the Internet.<br />Frescahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15323129046492056942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-69222317693684402412015-12-15T12:19:12.774-06:002015-12-15T12:19:12.774-06:00“Now I see what you mean”: in other words, what yo...“Now I see what you mean”: in other words, what you first wrote. I missed the importance of <i>become</i> .Michael Leddyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05547732736861224886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-8583277739747836512015-12-15T12:18:20.489-06:002015-12-15T12:18:20.489-06:00Now I see what you mean.
I just did some looking:...Now I see what you mean.<br /><br />I just did some looking: in 1998 the American Dialect Society called <i>e-</i> <a href="http://www.americandialect.org/1998_words_of_the_year" rel="nofollow">a “hyphenated prefix”</a> and voted it “Word (or perhaps Lexical Entry) of the Year.”Michael Leddyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05547732736861224886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-51217607771486956552015-12-15T12:04:22.705-06:002015-12-15T12:04:22.705-06:00It did begin as "electronic" (at least I...It did begin as "electronic" (at least I assume it did), but I think it now simply functions as a marker for "things web-related," since the "electronic" aspect of our lives is now taken for granted. I suspect future generations, if they still use it, will have little awareness of the "electronic" origin.<br /><br />And there's the name "eBay" as a model — even though that was apparently originally a shortened form of "Echo Bay."Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06485410374923842372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-59541567700599980952015-12-15T11:53:03.731-06:002015-12-15T11:53:03.731-06:00Didn’t the e begin as a stand-in for electronic?
...Didn’t the <i>e</i> begin as a stand-in for <i>electronic</i>?<br /><br />In 2009 <i>Garner’s Modern American Usage</i> found <i>e-mail</i> “five times as common as <i>email</i>” in print. The <a href="http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/" rel="nofollow">Corpus of Contemporary American English</a> (1990–2012) has <i>e-mail</i> as far more common. But I too suspect that the hyphen may disappear.Michael Leddyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05547732736861224886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-84213233406499325232015-12-15T10:15:57.340-06:002015-12-15T10:15:57.340-06:00"E" (and to an extent "i") has..."E" (and to an extent "i") has become a prefix, one that represents not an abbreviation (like G-spot) or a reference to a letter-shape (F-hole) but an actual semantic addition to a word, the way that "un-" does in "unforgettable." So you can make up new words like "ecard," "e-commerce," etc., with or without using a hyphen, and we understand immediately what the modification implies. ("Etail" is a special case, because there we drop the original initial consonant.) There may be a case for preserving the hyphen where clarity is an issue, but in the long run it's probably going to disappear.Chrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06485410374923842372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-91074115281506038022015-12-15T10:06:46.535-06:002015-12-15T10:06:46.535-06:00I couldn’t think of anything for i , hyphen or no...I couldn’t think of anything for <i>i</i> , hyphen or no hyphen. But the Apple names aren’t really words created in the wild; they don’t have to follow any rules. (Nor do MacBook and all camel-cased product names.) I always assumed JSTOR was an acronym, since it looks like one. But as I just found out, it stands for <i>Journal Storage </i> . Kmart used to have a hyphen. I still spell Wal-Mart (if I have to) with a hyphen. Maybe I should start spelling <i>iPhone</i> with a hyphen. :)Michael Leddyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05547732736861224886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8343608.post-61996160122901860922015-12-15T09:47:06.153-06:002015-12-15T09:47:06.153-06:00I am also staying with the hyphen, but I fear it w...I am also staying with the hyphen, but I fear it won't be long now. I was convinced by your list until I picked up where you left off: iTunes, JSTOR, Kmart, and (I know this one doesn't count) llama. stefannoreply@blogger.com