Hi Doug,

On Mon, May 13, 2024 at 05:36:28PM -0600, Doug McKenna wrote:
> I just noticed that TeX (2021) is placing a hyphen before the 'n' in 
> "dictionary" rather than after.  Two dictionaries I've self-referentially 
> looked at both say that the second syllable of "dictionary" is "tion", as in 
> "dic-tion-ar-y".

  Webster disagrees and gives dic·tio·nary 
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dictionary).
Since the original hyphen.tex follows mostly Webster, the breakpoints
dic-tio-nary are expected.  The pattern file was then extended and is
called hyph-en-us.tex in modern TeX distributions; it contains the
matching patterns

        2a2r 2c1t 3dict .dictio5 2io 1na o2n on1a 1tio

which, once aligned, yield:

        3d i c t
        .d i c t i o5
            2c1t
              1t i o
                2i o
                   o2n
                   o n1a
                    1n a
                      2a2r

where we can see that between ‘o’ and ‘n’, a break is first allowed with
1na, then forbidden with o2n, then allowed again with .dictio5.  Between
‘n’ and ‘a’, a break is first allowed with on1a, then forbidden with
2a2r.

> Is this a hyphe-
> nation bug requiring an official exception?

  Actually ... the word “hyphenation” is consistently hyphenated
hy-phen-a-tion by most dictionaries :-)  Sadly, both hyphen.tex and
hyphen-en-us.tex miss the last breakpoint and yield hy-phen-ation (but
hyph-en-gb.tex gives all breakpoints: hy-phen-a-tion).

        Best,

                Arthur

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