Good-bye-hyphens

So, the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has dropped the hyphens to about 16,000 words in their new edition.

That's-a-lot. That's a lot!

Basically, because of hyphen omission in emails, text messages and web sites, the hyphen-less words have made their way into newspapers and books. Those working on compiling the Dictionary say they thoroughly analyze the evidence of language when they make changes to words.

From the article:

Researchers examined a corpus of more than 2 billion words, consisting of full sentences that appeared in newspapers, books, Web sites and blogs from 2000 onwards.

What do you think? Should misuse dictate change?

(I know Ein Oso loves stuff like this)

Comments

[Ein Oso]

Idk, tisnf, my bff Jill thinks so. Should these be ADDED to the dictionary?

Seriously, I am more comfortable with this hyphen change than with other change associated with misuse. Examples like "videos", "CD's" and DVD's" irk me more, because of the inconsistency in the application of the rule, however misguided that application may be. I cringe when I see plural words in the same sentence or sign, and some words incorrectly have the apostrophe, while other words are spelled correctly.

Forgive me for sounding Republican, but this is a symptom of the "dumbing down" of America.

[Peter Lambert]

The dumbing down of America IS Repbulican. They like to keep people uninformed, because as we know, the truth has a well-known (hyphen!) liberal bias.

I don't mind the dropping of the hyphens, as long as the word pairs lacking hyphens are generally accepted and understood.

But that IS a lot!!