On 8/3/11 4:23 PM, Francois Gouget wrote:
On Wed, 3 Aug 2011, Frédéric Delanoy wrote:
[...]
-rem Removing non-existent directory
+rem Removing nonexistent directory
[...]
There is apparently no hard rule on the usage of hypens between 'non'
and a subsequent adjective, but I've seen lots of "non-" (sometimes
even "non ") so I wouldn't call that a spelling error.
Furthermore, the "non-" form is more readable IMHO
My paper dictionary lists a number of 'non-xxx' and 'nonxxx' words. It
has 'nonexistent' and not 'non-existent'. The Merriam-Webster also
prefers 'nonexistent'.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonexistent
Mozilla did a pass through their code replacing 'onn-existent' with
'nonexistent':
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=564091
However I'll acknowledge that a number of other online dictionaries
seem to accept both forms. Maybe the explanation is in the Cambridge
Dictionaries; they have 'non-existent' in the British dictionary and
'nonexistent' in the US one.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/non-existent
http://dictionaries.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=nonexistent*1+0&dict=A
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nonexistent
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/non-existent
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nonexistent
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/non-existent
Overall 'nonexistent' seemed better referenced in the dictionaries and
more 'legitimate'. But I can leave either form as is if that's
preferred.
Francois:
I always thought that it was hyphenated. Ran the word through the spell
checker on MS Word this afternoon and both spellings were accepted.
Alexandre will have to be the final say so on this as both spellings are
accepted.
James
