Yes Chris, I fully agree with you regarding the
falling out of hyphenated words.
Another such example is "portmanteau" you are using here in your post.
This word derives from the French "porte-manteau"
(laterally "coat (and hat) rack") that is now
currently written (yes, even in French) "portemanteau".
But English still went a step forward by omitting the "e".
And now in dictionary (e.g. Harrap's Shorter) or
on "i-Google", you can find that English
"portmanteau" translates into French
"portemanteau", word that has now 2 different
meanings in English ("coat rack" and "hybrid word").
Another such example that puzzled me at the time
was "South-East", written as such on official
maps showing "South-East Alaska" areas.
However, when in the area, i noted everywhere
(streets, posts stuck on walls...) "Southeast".
Usage to which I am quite favorable.
BTW: in the "Harraps", "strewnfield" does not exist.
But now, here in France, since meteorites became
popular, the English word "strewnfield" (never
"strewn field") is more and more used as....a (bastard) French word!
(the correct French name is still "ellipse de
chute", literally ""fall ellipse").
Allmybest,
Zelimir
At 04:48 15/01/2010, Chris Peterson wrote:
This is English you're talking about. What is
"correct" is determined by usage. "Strewn field"
is undoubtedly acceptable, and is the
traditional way of writing it. However, there is
a growing trend in recent English usage to
construct hybrid or portmanteau words-
especially in technical areas (thus, "webpage"
is now probably more common than "web page"). So
it isn't surprising to see "strewnfield" used
more often these days. Hyphenated words seem to
be falling out of favor somewhat.
IMO, any form is fine, but you should exercise
consistency. It would be distracting to see it
used different ways in the same discussion.
Chris
*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
http://www.cloudbait.com
----- Original Message ----- From: "Meteorites USA" <e...@meteoritesusa.com>
To: "Meteorite-list" <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 8:39 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Strewnfield or Strewn Field?
Hi Listees,
Thanks to you all who've written in with kind
words and comments on my new article a few days
back titled "What is a Meteorite Strewnfield?"
I really appreciate your compliments. I hope
you all enjoyed it. If you haven't read it yet
please do so. It's a good informative read, and
even has some pretty pictures too. ;)
The reason for this email is to ask about
proper use of the word(s) strewnfield. While
researching the article I noticed that the
numerous websites on the internet had 2 ways of
spelling the it. Should it be "Strewnfield" one
word... or "Strewn Field" two seperate words?
Every time I type in strewnfield in a search it
comes up with "Did you mean?" "strewn field"
with a space. I've seen it described as "Strewn
field" on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strewn_field Then
in the paragraph just below it reads
"strewnfield" all one word again. To make
matters more confusing Encyclopedia Britannica
has the word with a hyphen i.e; strewn-field.
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/569002/strewn-field
Google shows 67,500 results for the phrase
"strewn field" and the same amount for
strewn-field" with a hyphen, meaning they don't
recognize the hyphen. Google also shows 23,700
results for the single word "strewnfield". Not
to mention the many articles and papers all
over the internet with ALL 3 ways of usage of the word.
So which is it? or does it really matter?
______________________________________________
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Prof. Zelimir Gabelica
Université de Haute Alsace
ENSCMu, Lab. GSEC,
3, Rue A. Werner,
F-68093 Mulhouse Cedex, France
Tel: +33 (0)3 89 33 68 94
Fax: +33 (0)3 89 33 68 15
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