On Thu, 2005-07-21 at 11:52 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote: > On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Shaun McCance wrote: > > 4) Titlepage is a word. > > Or it is is two words, which I think was the original point being made. > > There must be lots of really good German programmers because I cannot > think why so many developers have a fascination with creating new compound > words. Sure it is fine in German and in compound words like website occur > in common usage a lot but web site is marginally easier to read and keeps > spellcheckers happy so I tend to split the compound words where the > spellchecker disagrees with me.
The one-word variant is in Webster. Whether or not it's the preferred form to use is another question. All you have to do is grap a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style and find its recommendation. In fact, I'll bet it even recommends "title page". But it is in the dictionary. And please, let's not blame the modern German-speaking programmer for something English speakers have been doing for centuries. Sure, German does it a lot. A whole lot. But we've been making new words by putting together old words for a long time. They're all over our language, and you use them all the time. Here's a small sampling: airplane barnyard bedroom bookshelf cannonball clothesline fingertip firearm fireplace firewall foothill headphones heartbeat kneecap landslide layman loudspeaker mealtime nobleman oatmeal paycheck pocketbook racetrack raindrop sandpaper shoelace toothpaste -- Shaun _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
