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Another linguistic question: to hyphen or not to hyphen?


Function

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Hello everyone

Writing my thesis, I'm talking a lot (and I mean, a damn lot) about values: b-values for diffusion-weighted imaging in MRI, p-values in statistics, T1-values and T2-values in MRI, ...

The question here is simple: to hyphen or not to hyphen? (British English) This seems like one of questions for which there exists the least consensus. So I'd love to hear your opinions on this. Should I put a hyphen between the statistic and "value", or not?

Thanks!

Function

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In British English, the hyphen is used to avoid ambiguity and produce clarity. American English seems to be unaware of a lot of ambiguities, or they are quite happy with them. 

 

The main uses are (Fowler): 

 

1) To join two or more words to form a single expression: punch-drunk

2) To join a prefix to a proper name: anti-Darwinian

3) To prevent misconceptions: thirty-odd people (not the same as thirty odd people)

4) To avoid ambiguity by separating a prefix: re-cover, not recover, when talking about an old sofa

5) To separate two similar consonants or vowel sounds: sword-dance

etc.

These days, if you use a noun as an adverb to describe an adjective, you use a hyphen: image-conscious, but if you use it as an adjective to describe a noun, you do not: image control

In the case you ask about, you always use an adjective when there is one, without a hyphen, so statistical value. If there were no adjective, you would say statistic value without a hyphen, but this is not English, because statistical exists

Edit: I've re-read your post (note that hyphen!) and p-values is correct etc.

Edited by DrKrettin
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6 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

In British English, the hyphen is used to avoid ambiguity and produce clarity. American English seems to be unaware of a lot of ambiguities, or they are quite happy with them. 

 

The main uses are (Fowler): 

 

1) To join two or more words to form a single expression: punch-drunk

2) To join a prefix to a proper name: anti-Darwinian

3) To prevent misconceptions: thirty-odd people (not the same as thirty odd people)

4) To avoid ambiguity by separating a prefix: re-cover, not recover, when talking about an old sofa

5) To separate two similar consonants or vowel sounds: sword-dance

etc.

These days, if you use a noun as an adverb to describe an adjective, you use a hyphen: image-conscious, but if you use it as an adjective to describe a noun, you do not: image control

In the case you ask, you always use an adjective when there is one, without a hyphen, so statistical value. If there were no adjective, you would say statistic value without a hyphen, but this is not English, because statistical exists

That seems to clarify just about every case except the one he wants to know about.
A spot of googling shows that both variants are common.
As long as you are consistent you can show that you are following the lead of some august body.

Incidentally, "British English" is a tautology. 

 

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2 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

That seems to clarify just about every case except the one he wants to know about.
A spot of googling shows that both variants are common.
As long as you are consistent you can show that you are following the lead of some august body.

Incidentally, "British English" is a tautology. 

 

Yes, I got tired and didn't really go on to say that. In a thesis, issues like this are problematic, and ultimately the important thing is to be consistent, as you say.

I am acutely aware of the tautology, by the way, but in the context of distinguishing it from American I think it is justified.

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15 minutes ago, Strange said:

Are American English or Irish English or Indian English also tautologies?

How would you suggest distinguishing the different dialects of English?

"Are American English or Irish English or Indian English also tautologies?"

No, but they may be contradictions in terms.

"How would you suggest distinguishing the different dialects of English?"

Properly: many of them have names, Scouse,  Geordie, Cockney etc.

The others can be described in terms of the locality in which they are used.

It's just that English English doesn't make a lot of sense.

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3 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

The others can be described in terms of the locality in which they are used.

So you think the dialect of English spoken in India should be called Indian? And the dialect of English spoken in China should be called Chinese?I can't see that being a problem at all. :)

4 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

It's just that English English doesn't make a lot of sense.

The phrase was "British English". This seems to be a standard term for the dialect of English spoken in Britain. 

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4 minutes ago, Strange said:

So you think the dialect of English spoken in India should be called Indian? And the dialect of English spoken in China should be called Chinese?I can't see that being a problem at all.

Strawman.

5 minutes ago, Strange said:

The phrase was "British English". This seems to be a standard term for the dialect of English spoken in Britain.

The word "British" is redundant, or it should be. English is the language of the English, and you find us in Britain.

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15 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

The word "British" is redundant, or it should be. English is the language of the English, and you find us in Britain.

I agree, but I sense a certain sophistry here. The context demands that a distinction be made between what is written in America and what is written in Britain. We can happily refer to American English, but in this context we can't sensibly compare "American English" with "English". The tautology is justified as a necessary clarification.

 

Edit: I've just notice the appallingly ungrammatical thread title. "Hyphen" is not a verb. "Hyphenate" is. I wish people would stop verbing nouns.

Edited by DrKrettin
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5 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

I agree, but I sense a certain sophistry here. The context demands that a distinction be made between what is written in America and what is written in Britain. We can happily refer to American English, but in this context we can't sensibly compare "American English" with "English". The tautology is justified as a necessary clarification.

 

Edit: I've just notice the appallingly ungrammatical thread title. "Hyphen" is not a verb. "Hyphenate" is. I wish people would stop verbing nouns.

Yeah, I saw that a bit later when I posted it and was secretly hoping no one would mention it. Darn it.

---

A similar situation exists between us Flemings and the Dutch.

We supposedly both speak "Dutch (Nederlands)", but there's no way comparing "Dutch Dutch (Nederlands Nederlands)" with "Flemish Dutch (Vlaams Nederlands)". However, "Flemish Dutch" is not officially recognised and thus we all just speak "Dutch".

(Though we Flemings sometimes refer to "Dutch Dutch" as "Hollands" [which has no appropriate English translation])

Likewise, I think it the statement that all Anglo-Saxon countries speak English is justifiable.

Edited by Function
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11 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

The context demands that a distinction be made between what is written in America and what is written in Britain. We can happily refer to American English, but in this context we can't sensibly compare "American English" with "English". The tautology is justified as a necessary clarification.

"The context demands that a distinction be made between what is written in America and what is written in Britain."
Yes, they are distinct, "American English" and "English". You don't need to say that English is English from England (and is rather different from Welsh- or Scots- English)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_English

 

"We can happily refer to American English, but in this context we can't sensibly compare "American English" with "English"."

Why not? Anywhere other than England, you say which version it is, where the dialect isn't stated it's "English English" but there's no need to write it twice.

As I pointed out "British English" is a myth. I think it was  brought about by word processor dictionary writers.

"The tautology is justified as a necessary clarification."
I rather suspect that about the only thing  a tautology can't be is "necessary".

Label  all the dialects by their locales  and leave "English" as the word for English.

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35 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Strawman.

OK. So when you said "the others can be described in terms of the locality in which they are used" you mean it is OK to say "Indian English," for example, or even "Scottish English," "Welsh English" or "Irish English" but not "British English."

That sounds a little ethnocentric. If not Imperialistic.

Quote

The word "British" is redundant, or it should be. English is the language of the English, and you find us in Britain.

English is the (first) language of many people round the world. You find them in all sorts of countries.

25 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

"Hyphen" is not a verb.

It is if you verb it. :)

But as Calvin said, "verbing weirds language."

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23 minutes ago, Strange said:

English is the (first) language of many people round the world. You find them in all sorts of countries.

Yes and no. A lot of people who live in America think they speak and write  English, yet they use words and spellings that are not used or sometimes even recognised in England.

If there is enough difference to say we need words to describe the variations (and the implication so far has been that we do) then you can't say they are the same thing.

If "American English" is "English" then the "American" descriptor is redundant.

 

Since it's accepted that the languages are different, you can't say that all these people speak English.

23 minutes ago, Strange said:

OK. So when you said "the others can be described in terms of the locality in which they are used" you mean it is OK to say "Indian English," for example, or even "Scottish English," "Welsh English" or "Irish English" but not "British English."

I'm not saying it's not OK to say "British English", I'm saying it's meaningless because Britain is 3 or 4 countries (depending on whether  you count N Ireland) and their languages are different. I presume that "Indian English" may have similar problems. it's hard to see how people with different mother tongues like Hindustanni and Urdu would use the same pronunciations/ accents etc for English. I have no doubt that some people can tell (roughly) where in India someone comes from by the way in which they speak English.

I am quite happy to talk about Scouse English- the locations don't need to be very big.

Imperialist would be if you tried to claim that your empire was so great it should take over as the official version of another country's language.

 

Incidentally, the irony of the week award.

"Hyphenated" is non-hyphenated but "non-hyphenated" is hyphenated.

(I only mentioned that in case anyone had forgotten what the topic was about; perhaps we should get back to it)

Edited by John Cuthber
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1 minute ago, John Cuthber said:

Since it's accepted that the languages are different, you can't say that all these people speak English.

That is such a bizarre statement, I don't really know where to begin. I thought this sort of attitude had died out in the 1940s. 

How do you define "English" (the one true version of the language)?

Every region of England speaks a slightly different dialect. In many cities, regions of the city speak different dialects (e.g. Cockney in London). Different age groups and classes speak different dialects, some may even be mutually incomprehensible (e.g. MLE & RP). Even the BBC now uses several different dialects of English. Ultimately every individual speaks a different idiolect. Do you think that any English that differs from that spoken by the Queen should be given an appropriate specifier?

12 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

I'm not saying it's not OK to say "British English", I'm saying it's meaningless because Britain is 3 or 4 countries (depending on whether  you count N Ireland) and their languages are different.

But there are certain things that are consistent between them, such as spelling, and those are the things that the term is used to identify. So, for example, in this thread, the question was about American versus British orthography (not grammar, but lets not get too pedantic). 

I suppose you could just say "American versus British orthography (or grammar, spelling or ...)" and assume we are talking about English. But as there are many other languages spoken in both countries, that could be confusing.

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56 minutes ago, Strange said:

How do you define "English" (the one true version of the language)?

 

57 minutes ago, Strange said:

some may even be mutually incomprehensible

Apparently differently from you.

My view is that the language has to be mutually comprehensible otherwise it's not the same language. Otherwise you run into the problem that, for example, Dutch and Afrikaans are the same language because there is some mutual understanding.

I believe that some TV shows made in England have to be subtitled for an American audience.

Why do you need to subtitle something that's in your own language?

 

BTW, is Mexican English American English?

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