Talk:hyphen

Proper noun
I doubt the veracity of the proper noun section. Can anyone provide any evidence that any individual's name or nickname is "Hyphen"? If this were wikipedia rather than wiktionary, I would add {&zwnj;{citation_needed}&zwnj;}. Martin Kealey (talk) 08:39, 25 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I have RFVed it. Equinox ◑ 19:53, 25 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks. My (now-reverted) edit was based on the consensus from several hours of discussion in the ##English channel on freenode; I realize that's not in itself an authority, but it wasn't just my personal opinions (which tended towards wholesale removal).
 * It would be good to have clarity around whether "reading aloud" a symbol such as a hyphen, when in the middle of a proper noun, itself counts as a proper noun, or as something else. My suspicion is that it's something else, since neither titles nor qualification "letters" are proper nouns either. Martin Kealey (talk) 07:12, 27 November 2019 (UTC)


 * "A symbol read aloud" does not have a written representation (by definition!) so that's not enough to give it an entry here, since our entries are for written words. In the case of someone seeing - and saying hyphen, they are simply speaking the word, rather like a child seeing a picture of a cat and speaking the word cat (not speaking a picture of a cat, which is impossible). So: common noun. Equinox ◑ 01:01, 28 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Just to be completely contrarian, there have been some people whose given name is "Hyphen", such as "Hyphen Jones" as documented in his wife's obituary. But that still doesn't validate the wording of that section as it stood. Martin Kealey (talk) 03:58, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: November–December 2019
Per comment at Talk:hyphen. Proper noun: "(colloquial) Used to refer to a person with a hyphenated name." Equinox ◑ 19:54, 25 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I suspect this is a noun, not a proper noun, and have added what I suspect this means to the Noun section - there are a number of texts who refer to people that fall into mixed categories (such as people with disabilities, mixed ethnicities, etc) as hyphens. I found what looks like a phrasal verb "work the hyphens" used repeatedly for people whose work is to bridge the gaps that such people experience. Kiwima (talk) 02:51, 26 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I see, so the "hyphenated name" is a descriptor, not something like "Blake Fielder-Civil". Interesting. Equinox ◑ 03:37, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

RFV-failed Kiwima (talk) 19:43, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Categories
Should we link somewhere like in a see also useful categories pertaining to hypened terms we have articles for? For example:
 * Category:English senses used only in hyphenated compounds

I know I've seen many (though I'm having trouble remembering specific examples) examples of "alternate spellings" where there is one popular spelling and then less popular spellings just link back to it.

Usually the pattern is a compound (or conjunction?) using a hyphen between 2 words, a space between two words, or neither a hyphen or space.

Can anyone think of some, and do you know if there are categories recognizing these, if we want to look at patterns of what words exist in 2-3 forms like that? Olivia comet (talk) 19:01, 21 February 2020 (UTC)