There are always items from the newspapers on our local radio station every
morning. On Friday, one of the papers (don't know which) was carrying the
story that the hyphen is dead. There's now no longer any need to use it
because people mostly don't and it's become accepted that words like e-mail
and co-operation don't have to have a hyphen any more. Email I accept, but
to me cooperation is pronounced cooooperation with a long oo.

The presenter said that perhaps we should also get rid of the apostrophe as
very few people know how to use it. He'd been in an electircal store in the
hot weather, and there was a notice announcing "No fan's in stock". But I
think the best use of the apostrophe I ever saw was in the ice cream parlour
I worked in while at shool. It was run by an Italian gentleman and his wife,
and one day they ran out of ice cream. So he put a notice in the window "No
ice's cream". Cute.

Jean in Poole

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