Sendecki’s Blog

Of primary interest to me, as of late, is the use of the hyphen—particularly as it relates to foreign words (especially Japanese)—as we work through Yoko Danno’s translation of the Kojiki. I prefer to use them only where it is established convention to do so or where omission would result in ambiguity or confusion. My mantra: when in doubt, leave it out!

However, it’s a different kind of game when dealing with foreign words in english — I have learned that, wherever possible, hyphenated forms of Japanese terms should be avoided. Instead, we’ve aimed to treat the hyphenated word as a single compound word. This is because we, in the West, have a strange understanding of kanji as a written language, which has led to the improper usage of the hyphen within the various transliterations.

The concept of placing two or more representational characters together to form a new word or idea, is no different than stringing letters of an alphabet together to form new words. We don’t write “w-o-r-d-s” on a page, neither do the Japanese use hyphens to connect multiple kanji together to form words.

Regardless, right or wrong, the hyphen has become ubiquitous in english when faced with non-romanized characters! Let’s get rid of it, I say! Well, we are making good strides — according to the Quill & Quire’s blog—about 16,000 hyphens have been eliminated in the new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, a scaled-down version of the 20-volume OED, The New York Times reports.

What’s getting the heave are most hyphens linking the halves of a compound noun. Some, like “ice cream,” “fig leaf,” “hobby horse” and “water bed,” have been fractured into two words, while many others, like “bumblebee,” “crybaby” and “pigeonhole,” have been squeezed into one.

Check out the excerpt here.