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Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

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Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#131

Post by Turing_Machine »

chimeracoder wrote: post #91
jgrahamc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I wasn't clear enough. I was not implying that "two week Easter holiday" was incorrect (although I think it would be OK to go with "two week Easter holiday). My point was that 3 of 4 uses of hyphens were wrong.

> My point was that 3 of 4 uses of hyphens were wrong. Wrong according to whom? We're not talking about writers for a newspaper or magazine, where everyone is expected to adhere to a single style for the sake of uniformity. James Joyce did a number of things "wrong" both grammatically and stylistically, but that was part of the artistic expression. It's weird, to say the least, for a bookstore to enforce style. When…

"Wrong according to whom?"

According to the customer who complained about them (who is, after all, the person with the money), and anyone else who's familiar with standard English usage.

Consciously choosing to break the rules and breaking them because you don't know any better are two different things.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#132

Post by Dylan16807 »

spdustin wrote: post #121
cantankerous wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. The author is really talking about Amazon suppressing creativity in the written word. If you're going to take issue with the title, you should probably go with the "should be a title more in line with this theme". Clearly the title is hanging people up.

No, he is not talking about suppressing creativity at all. If he was, he wouldn't argue that his usage of hyphens was defensible as "correct" per the OED. If it was a creative issue, he'd simply say "it is a stylistic choice, what else do you need from me to re-activate this ebook for sale?"

Yep. Amazon is suppressing books that probably shouldn't be suppressed, but it's not because of the creative aspects of them.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#133

Post by Turing_Machine »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #128
notatoad wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think he's suggesting that Hachette has sane standards and formatting rules, instead of running your book against a dictionary and counting the hyphens.

And your evidence that's what Amazon is doing would be?

From what I'm seeing here (and on the site) a customer complained about bad hyphenation. Amazon pulled up the book, and, sure enough, it has some bad hyphenation.

That's not at all the same as algorithmically rejecting a book based on hyphen count.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#134

Post by mring33621 »

I read tons of books via the kindle app on android. I believe that hyphens DO hinder the reading experience... due to an apparent bug with the kindle app!

I have seen countless times that, if the current page breaks on a hyphen, then the next page seems to begin at the next full sentence, thereby losing information. My normal workaround is to simply change font size temporarily to force a repagination. It is annoying.

So, maybe this is why people have complained? I can't really see any other explanation for caring whether or not an author chose to hyphenate.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#135

Post by kefka »

talideon wrote: post #65
swalsh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those to me seem like a perfectly acceptable use of a hyphen.

'red-head scarf' certainly isn't an acceptable use of a hyphen, unless the scarf is woven from the hair of a red-haired person.

Admittedly, I thought of the sexual double-entendre. Muff can make a nice scarf...

But I digress.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#136

Post by potatolicious »

joesmo wrote: post #84
Someone1234 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they are actual words, then that hyphen should not count. That would have side-effects e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-barrelled_name

Well then they shouldn't do it at all or rethink their algorithm altogether.

Or do the sane thing most other people do: back up an imperfect but effective algorithm with competent human review.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#138

Post by mattmanser »

grokys wrote: post #22
jeremyswank wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i didn't think a human being could be a 'nonce', or is this some new usage i don't know about?

From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_%28slang%29 >> In the United Kingdom, nonce is a slang word for a sex offender or child sexual abuser.

Nonce means mild idiot in my social circles. I wasn't implying they were a social offender. I wasn't even aware of its implications. Learn something every day.

I'd delete the comment but HN has got ridiculously militant about that now and I can't.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#139

Post by lucio »

temuze wrote: post #78
jgrahamc wrote: post #47

So, I looked through the preview of the author's "High Moor" which is available on Amazon.co.uk and I see things like: "One of them picked up what looked like a dog's hind-leg and put it in a white plastic bag." "With the two-week Easter holiday just over a month away, ..." "The woman's white hair was hidden by a red-head scarf, ..." "The door of one of the expensive motor-homes opened ..." Seems to me Amazon may hav…

Here's the thing though - the writer should have the artistic liberty to use the punctuation they desire.

Playing devil's advocate, Amazon should have the liberty to choose what to sell. Obviously, they cannot abuse, bad publicity is bad for sales, but in this case -IANANES- (I'm not a native english speaker) the examples sound bad. "red-head scarf" is -to me, IANANES- a scarf made of a red head or a scarf specially designed for redheads.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#140

Post by sebular »

jgrahamc wrote: post #96
chimeracoder wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point was that 3 of 4 uses of hyphens were wrong. Wrong according to whom? We're not talking about writers for a newspaper or magazine, where everyone is expected to adhere to a single style for the sake of uniformity. James Joyce did a number of things "wrong" both grammatically and stylistically, but that was part of the artistic expression. It's weird, to say the least, for a bookstore to enforce style. When…

The writer is no James Joyce.

That's a really poor response.

When Joyce published his first novel as a nobody, people like you would've said something equally thoughtless about his grammar, followed up by a glib "the writer is no Arthur Conan Doyle."

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