Tiraya
San Diego CA
Oh boy, do I love, and hate hyphens. Moving to America has challenged my understanding of hyphens quite a bit. Broad-leaved willowherb became broadleaf willowherb, night heron became night-heron, and so on.
I ask the following questions because these examples in particular still confuse me. I have read the IOC "rules" and they don't really answer these cases for me.
1. Tropicbird is not hyphenated, so why is storm-petrel?
2. Night-heron should be nightheron, following nighthawk, no?
3. Wood-pewee is hyphenated, but bushtit is not?
4. Wrentit, according to IOC rules, should be hyphenated. But it isn't. ???
5. Is magpie lark really magpie lark, or is it magpielark, or magpie-lark?
Can anyone help me out? I want to understand hyphens rather than ignore them. Personally I've ignored IOC and followed these 3 rules on basis of what makes the most logical sense:
Adjective adjective**+noun = first term separate, latter terms combined with no hyphen (superb fairywren)
Adjective noun+noun = first term separate, latter terms combined with hyphen (grey shrike-thrush)
Noun+noun = spaced words, no hyphens (night parrot)
Am I wrong to follow these 3 rules? If not I suppose if fairywren is combined, shouldn't stormpetrel also be combined as so? Why or why not? It looks ugly, but for consistency we can't pick and choose.
**obviously fairy itself is generally a noun, but in this case it is used as an adjective to describe the bird.
I ask the following questions because these examples in particular still confuse me. I have read the IOC "rules" and they don't really answer these cases for me.
1. Tropicbird is not hyphenated, so why is storm-petrel?
2. Night-heron should be nightheron, following nighthawk, no?
3. Wood-pewee is hyphenated, but bushtit is not?
4. Wrentit, according to IOC rules, should be hyphenated. But it isn't. ???
5. Is magpie lark really magpie lark, or is it magpielark, or magpie-lark?
Can anyone help me out? I want to understand hyphens rather than ignore them. Personally I've ignored IOC and followed these 3 rules on basis of what makes the most logical sense:
Adjective adjective**+noun = first term separate, latter terms combined with no hyphen (superb fairywren)
Adjective noun+noun = first term separate, latter terms combined with hyphen (grey shrike-thrush)
Noun+noun = spaced words, no hyphens (night parrot)
Am I wrong to follow these 3 rules? If not I suppose if fairywren is combined, shouldn't stormpetrel also be combined as so? Why or why not? It looks ugly, but for consistency we can't pick and choose.
**obviously fairy itself is generally a noun, but in this case it is used as an adjective to describe the bird.
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