atw: Re: Quick grammar question [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

I thought this was all agreed. But now that an element of dissent has
appeared, I must jump in and support those preferring
'non-district-specific' to 'non-district specific'. The latter looks
ridiculous to me - it's natural to read the hyphen as linking only the
words it's directly attached to, so it looks as if it means 'specific to
non-districts'. And using 'non-district specific' alongside
'district-specific' would be even more ridiculous - if you put a hyphen
between 'district' and 'specific' in one you should certainly be
consistent and do so in the other.
 
More generally, I'd say there's a problem with attaching prefixes like
'non-' to multi-word phrases that don't already have hyphens. For
instance, if you refer to 'Department of Defence personnel', then it
might seem you could also reasonably refer to 'non-Department of Defence
personnel'. But to me that looks as ridiculous as 'non-district
specific' and for the same reason: it looks as if you're talking about
personnel from a non-Department dedicated to Defence matters, or maybe
just Defence personnel from a non-Department (whatever that is). In
cases like this, I think the only solution is to rephrase the whole
thing. 
 
Some people put 'non' in without any hyphen at all, but to me that looks
even worse, because 'non' isn't a word in its own right any more than
'pre' or 'anti' are.
 
And what about 'global'? That would be the best solution, I agree, as
long as it makes sense in the context. 
 
Maybe we should all just forget about this and look forward to our
holidays...
 
Howard
 
 

        -----Original Message-----
        From: austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:austechwriter-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jill Nicholson
        Sent: Tuesday, 20 December 2005 14:17
        To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Subject: atw: Re: Quick grammar question
        
        
        No, only 2, it is non-district specific.
        In haste
        Happy Holidays/Xmas/Whatever Jill Nicholson
        
        N&H Communications
        2 Park Ave
        ROSEVILLE,  NSW 2069
        61+2+94174302
        jpnicho@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
        www.nhcommunications.com.au everyone
        Jill
         

                ----- Original Message ----- 
                From: Sonja McShane <mailto:smcshane@xxxxxxxxxxx>  
                To: austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
                Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 8:58 AM
                Subject: atw: Quick grammar question

                A quick question for the grammarish types. When there
are two categories of information, district-specific and
non-district-specific, do I put the two hyphens in the second one? I'm
pretty sure I do, but not 100%. (It's one of those
very-slow-to-get-the-brain-in-gear mornings!)
                 
                Thanks,
                Sonja
                 
                ___________________
                Sonja McShane
                Panviva Pty Ltd
                bh: (03) 9822 0555
                mb:  0413 769 548

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