Post #1990142
2026-05-04 10:00 UTC
Saw "nonhabit-forming" in a book and wanted to parse it (nonsensically) as "forming of non-habit".
I wrote about these tricky hyphens once: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/non-life-threatening-unselfconscious-hyphens/
#punctuation #hyphens #semantics #writing #EnglishUsage
Replies (1)
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@bodhipaksa@mastodon.scot 2026-05-04 11:34
@stancarey@mastodon.ie I enjoy your humor in these columns. Constructions involving "unco-", as in "unco-operative," always throw me off.because "unco" is a Scots word, meaning strangely or exceedingly, as in Burns' "Address To The Unco Guid."