hyphenated words (was: [tuning-math] new Dictionary entry: "torsion")

> From: paulerlich <paul@...>
> To: <tuning-math@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 5:25 PM
> Subject: [tuning-math] Re: new Dictionary entry: "torsion"
>
>
> --- In tuning-math@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> >
> > new Dictionary entry: "torsion"
> >
> > http://www.ixpres.com/interval/dict/torsion.htm
> >
> >
> > Feedback appreciated.
> >
> > (and thanks for the helpful criticisms, Paul)
> >
> >
> >
> > -monz
>
> Why hyphenate periodicity-block? You don't hyphenate
> vacuum-cleaner, do you?

Well, I've never actually had to write "vacuum cleaner" before,
but my preference probably *would* be to hyphenate it. :)

Just a personal idiosyncracy of mine ... probably comes from
reading so many German music-theory books.

In German, "compound" words are simply new words that are
composed of a conglomeration of all the smaller words that
make it up, all butted up against each other without spaces,
hyphens, etc. -- simply one long new word.

And www.dictionary.com says:

>> Compound word: a word composed of two or more words;
>> specifically, two or more words joined together by a hyphen.

It's just my intuitive sense that when people are using
two English words as a unit, then those words should be
combined into a hyphenated compound word. I do it all the
time: "periodicity-block", "unison-vector", "quarter-tone",
"1/4-comma", "wafso-just", etc.

I've been criticized for doing this before, from other quarters,
but I'm not going to stop; in fact, quite the opposite: since
I'm the guy who compiles and maintains the Tuning Dictionary,
my hope is that others will pick up my use of hyphenation
and use it as well.

As anyone whose native language is *not* English knows,
English is a language with "no rules". It's sucked in terms
and concepts from so many other languages, and, oddly enough
and unlike most other languages, rather than insist on
making newly-adopted foreign terms fit its own system of
"rules" (spelling, pronunciation, etc.), it simply adopts
the whole foreign set of rules which go with that word,
creating a big hodgepodge of "rules" which hardly any
non-native-speaker can remember without extensive study and
practice. I'm just trying to enforce one little logical rule.

-monz

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--- In metatuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> Just a personal idiosyncracy of mine ... probably comes from
> reading so many German music-theory books.

Out of curiosity, would a child play with a wooden-block or a wooden
block?

> In German, "compound" words are simply new words that are
> composed of a conglomeration of all the smaller words that
> make it up, all butted up against each other without spaces,
> hyphens, etc. -- simply one long new word.

Great. Any one remember LPs? Like the ones from Deutsche Grammophone,
with the notes in English, French, and German? And where that third
column dwarfed the others in length?

But this seems like a well-thought plan of yours, and it isn't my
place to tell you what to-do.

:)

Warm-regards,
Jon