Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Note 1020 describes words that can be split (not hyphenated) into
    two different, valid groupings (Super bowl / Superb owl).  
    
    Hyphenation seems to make things more difficult.
    					
    					andrew

    Union-ized
    Un-ionized
    
    
    (Can't do this in Japanese, because words can be broken anywhere and t
    here are no hyphens.)

    re-sign v. resign
    

    One I always mispronounced:
    
    be-draggled  bed-raggled
    
    and one other people have had trouble with:
    
    mis-led  mi-sled (mi-zelled)
    
    						Ann B.

    Thanks for the examples so far. I like 'unionized' most. My second
    favourite is 'resign', but here my dictionary states that the word
    cannot be hyphenated for its first meaning, and that there should be a
    non-optional hyphen for the second meaning. 'Misled' also seems to be a
    real example, but even after having looked up the word 'sled', I find
    it difficult to imagine what 'mi-sled' might be. Similarly, 'draggle'
    is in my dictionary, but what to think about 'be-draggle'? Would native
    english speakers find this meaningful? And my dictionary doesn't mention
    'raggle' either - it does mention 'raggle-taggle'.
    
    Why am I so difficult? Well, I want to use these examples outside DEC
    in a discussion about alphabetical ordering. In my opinion, the best
    ordering would be: uninvited, union, unionise, un-ionise, union-ise,
    unipara. But one could also defend: ..., unionise, union-ise,
    un-ionise, ... or maybe even some combination that puts the
    non-hyphenated word at the end. If someone in this forum has good
    arguments for some specific order, please tell me.
    
    Oh, and by the way, I do welcome examples in other languages, because I
    will be in an international meeting on this subject. There are indeed
    languages where hyphenation doesn't make sense.
    
    Ren�.

    In ASCII, this is how your list would sort:
    
	un-ionise
	uninvited
	union
	union-ise
	unionise
	unipara
    
    Without check my ASCII chart, I infer that the "dash" character
    precedes the lowercase alphabet.  Not sure how this fits in.
    
    					andrew

    That's why an ASCII sort can hardly be called an alphabetical ordering.
    It gets worse when you add words in uppercase and it gets sinister, if
    not criminal, when you extend ASCII to Latin-1 and still rely on bit-
    code ordering.
    
    Fortunately, there are now good algorithms to get a human-friendly
    ordering as opposed to a computer-friendly ordering.
    
    Ren�.

Sort of along the lines of misled (which always looks like mize'ld to me):
the German word hingehen, which in English is a folding chicken.

    fund-ing
    fun-ding

    Re .5
    
    I agree with later comments that bit patterns are not suitable for
    sorting for human languages.  You need two (or more, actually many
    more) rules for determining the results of comparison, for sorting
    and other purposes.  For some purposes you need bit patterns.
    
    However, for human languages, I would say that unionise and un-ionise
    and union-ise should all compare equal.  If you're publishing a
    dictionary, the main keyword is unionise, and the other spellings are
    synonyms in the same entry.
    
    For human languages, maybe you want unionise and unionize to compare
    equal, or maybe not.  It depends on what you're doing with them.
    
    For human languages, you have to choose an order for wont and won't.
    Maybe.  If you have only one entry for watch (both the noun and the
    verb, two unrelated words), then maybe you need only one entry for
    both wont and won't.
    
    In English, if you have only one entry for watch, then you have only
    one entry for analyses.  But in American, you might want two entries
    for analyses (noun) and analyzes (verb).
    
    There are many valid ways to choose comparison functions, and bit
    patterns have nothing to do with most of them.
    
    -- Norman Diamond

    This word is its own opposite: nowhere - now-here; but it's not really
    an acceptable hyphenation. I also found warp-lane and idea-list, but
    I'm not as happy with them as with unionised.
    
    Ren�.

    None of your examples are real phrases in their hyphenated forms.
    
    Could you please repeat why you're going through this exercise --
    I really don't see the point.
    
    					andrew

    One in another language, but not exactly by hyphenating
    
    Laat de leeuw in je los
    Laat de leeuwin je los (?)
    


                                                  - Rik -
    

"clipart"

As in, "I spent the morning rebuilding DCL.EXE, and when I 
was finished, I had several leftover cliparts which didn't
seem to belong anywhere".

    I remember reading an article that talked about intercity trains
    (pronouncing it as one word rather like interstice).  I kept running
    it through my head ... pondering what an intercity service was, until
    the penny dropped and I kicked myself ... I was too used to seeing
    InterCity or Inter-city. :-)
    
    Stuart