So, lessee...what you're saying then, is that the introduction of a hyphen into any standing word structure for clarity's sake is taboo? That unless a hyphen is a part of the transition of two words forming into one word (as per baseball), then hypens are illegal? Well, let's see what one of the foremost coiners of newly-hypenated (
) words for the sake of gaining poetic imagery, a more original semantic nuance, Mr. Dylan Thomas, had to say...oh, and this just so happens to be from a "minor" work of his you may or may not know,
Under Milkwood, the opening:
To begin at the beginning:
It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and-rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the
sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.So, unless these instances are on their way to becoming, let's say, courters'andrabbits' and fishingboatbobbingsea, I guess they're taboo as well?
And the only thing worse then complaining about a writer's strategically-chosen hyphen is for an editor to place a hypen in an author's word without any consultation...but we won't mention any names, tswum.
