Tag Archives: prefix

To hyphenate or not to hyphenate

Posted on April 24, 2013 by

  Today we’re discussing words with prefixes and whether we should hyphenate them. In general, English is moving away from hyphenation (it’s coworker, not co-worker, for instance), but there are some situations in which using the hyphen is the better … Continue reading →

Posted in copy editing, style issues | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

A dis- and a mis-

Posted on March 27, 2012 by

Lesson: learning more about the prefixes mis- and dis- mis-: 1. badly, wrongly; unfavorably; in a suspicious manner 2. bad, wrong 3. opposite or lack of 4. not —Merriam-Webster dis-: 1. do the opposite of; deprive of (a specified quality, … Continue reading →

Posted in grammar, semantics | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Simply dashing part three: the hyphen

Posted on September 6, 2011 by

Welcome back for our final installment from the horizontal language department. Previously we discussed the em dash and the en dash. Today we will learn about the shortest in the dash-like family, the hyphen. Hyphen basics Hyphens link: a prefix … Continue reading →

Posted in copy editing, punctuation | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Prefix and Suffix-athon

Posted on April 22, 2011 by

Native English speakers routinely squash prefixes and suffixes before and after words to alter their meanings. Often they do it without giving much thought as to what the few letters before or after actually mean. For instance, if someone is … Continue reading →

Posted in etymology, grammar | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment