Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 04:37:57 -0400

From: "M. Lynne Murphy" 104LYN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]MUSE.ARTS.WITS.AC.ZA

Subject: Re: new phrase



One problem, abstruse as it may, with "email" sans hyphen or cap E, is that it

looks too much like the French word for enamel, as in those beautiful Limoges

plates in the Frick (for you New Yorkers) and elsewhere. Anyway, the pattern

would presumably call for a hyphen and/or cap E. After all it's D-Day, not

dday, g-man (perhaps a better fit, since that's a description like e-mail

rather than a name like D-Day), K rations (not krations),... I think it's

productive, too: I've seen b-day and B-day (for birthday).



but...i (and those in my great sphere of influence) use bday and cmas

(christmas)--the former is quite wide spread among those who mark the

joyous season of lynneukah (otherwise known as the 8 days of lynne's

bday). (only 110 shopping days left! shop now and avoid the rush.)



these are better than "krations" because, in english, you'd have to

syllabify the "b" before "day" and the "c" before "mas", but the

"kr-" works as an initial cluster. (the k rations e.g., is kind of

cheating, though because it's not hyphenated in the first place.)



similarly, email will work because you can pronounce it as spelt.

i'm trying to think of other things that might start with hyphen-

separated vowels in order to test this but cannot. aline (a-line)

skirt would not work, but the spelling indicates that the "a" should

be short, so that might explain that. we'd need other cases where

the spelling rules don't conflict with the dehyphenization.



best,

lynne

---------------------------------------