Message-ID: <3B9E41CF.9565AB88@fourpalms.org>
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 16:54:39 +0000
From: Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@fourpalms.org>
Reply-To: lockhart@fourpalms.org
Organization: Yes
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>
Cc: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Spelling
References: <Pine.LNX.4.30.0109111710150.680-100000@peter.localdomain>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

...
> * "multi" is not a word by itself, so there is no hyphenation when it's
>   used as a prefix:
>   multibyte character, multicharacter operator name, multiversion
>   concurrency control, multicolumn index

No arguments here, but...

I *think* that it is typical and accepted to use hyphenation in cases
where the base word does not have that qualification as common usage.

An example might be (but then again, may not be ;) "multi-version" vs
"multiversion". There is "a version", and there are "multiple versions",
but in common usage the multi prefix is not associated with this noun
(and what the heck, the phrase is using it as an adjective anyway!). So
hyphenation is acknowledgment that the word is constructed in a way that
is different from the usual practice.

As a counter-example (ooh, there's a hyphen now ;), the opposite of
"multiversion concurrency control" may be "single-version concurrency
control", with the hyphen required (substituting a space is not right,
and running the two words together isn't either). Hmm, but maybe the
opposite is actually "universion concurrency control"??

Oh, it's too confusing. But I'm on the record as liking hyphens.

                    - Thomas