Comments on: You be the blogger

By: ACW

ACW — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 19:29:57 +0000

Umm, how about the home front? There, you have the benefit of my 30 seconds. And worth every penny you paid for it.

By: orthoclase

orthoclase — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 20:27:43 +0000

If you have anything like my experience, it’ll be The Money Pit.

By: Q. Pheevr

Q. Pheevr — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 00:29:36 +0000

I don't know, but I feel somehow compelled to point out that the Toronto Star, when it needs to break the word homeowner across a line, does so like this:

blah blah blah blah ho- meowner blah blah blah

By: wolfa

wolfa — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 01:44:55 +0000

ACW, that is not bitter enough for me. (As opposed to the supremely bitter category name “kitties”.)

Orthoclase, I think I am going to be forced to agree with you. A new toilet! Argh.

Q, well, I think that the m is really part of that next syllable, so I think that is the choice they have to make based on syllable breaks. Of course normal people would say ‘damn phonology! I will use morphology!’ but editors are not normal.

By: Cougar

Cougar — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 03:38:52 +0000

If the Toronto Star spells it homoaner from now on no one will be surprised when they hyphenate it:

blah blah blah blah ho-
moaner blah blah blah

Come to think of it, would that be a sufficiently bitter category name?

By: Q. Pheevr

Q. Pheevr — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:46:55 +0000

Or homemoanership, perhaps. (The thing about ho-moaner is that it might make some people think it was about… tilth.)

I agree about the syllable boundary in homeowner, but:

1. Whenever I see it, I don’t read it as homeowner; I always wonder what meowning is, and whether it’s like meowing only more nasal.
2. I don’t think it’s an editorial choice; I think it’s the output of a hyphenation program that doesn’t know the word homeowner.

By: wolfa

wolfa — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 16:56:55 +0000

Okay, I looked it up. There is one major rule, no splitting words so that the first syllables look misleading: coincidence cannot be split coin-cidence and coinage cannot be split co-inage (this is moronic because that is splitting in the middle of a syllable). So ho-meowner passes that rule.

Then there are two methods, the British one, which is essentially morphology (which they called etymology, but was clearly morphology) first and the American one, which is phonology first. So ho-meowner is acceptable. Annoying, but acceptable.

I vote no on ho-moaner, for the same obvious reason.

By: sheepish

sheepish — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 17:08:43 +0000

Sheesh, if I new I was going to be quizzed on my suggestion, I’d've (yay double contractions!) thought twice about suggesting it. All I can think of are sappy things or slightly bitter cheesy things (ala “home is where the heartbreak is”).