Di-vision – Div-ision – Divi-sion – Divis-ion
by Jack Dixon (January 2009)
Well, phoneticians fail to stimulate us. And, though the learning of language by infants is a miracle — GBS opined that it was an intellectual feat never again equalled by any adult in later life — we must regretfully leave that intriguing field of exploration until another time. Or at the Greek Calends.
Word-division, such as I intend it, has to do with the splitting and carrying-over of a word from the end of one typographical line to the beginning of the next. If you have never agonized over it, you are wise. You leave it to your typist or your publisher’s printer. But what if you are the typist, or writer, or proofreader? What, further, if you are a conscientious typist or proofreader, and you
The truth of the matter is that French, to a marked degree more than English, is a structured, grammatical language, whose behaviour is formalised by rules. Those rules are learned and applied, from the earliest days, at the mother’s breast. French word-division is determined by syllabification (or syllabication. I reject ‘syllabation’.) The French syllable, where possible, begins with a consonant and ends with a vowel-sound. No Frenchman would ever divide a word in the wrong place. It would be as unthinkable for him to write or print the second largest French-speaking city in the world MON-TREAL or MONTR-EAL, as it would be thinkable for an English-speaking printer to commit the barbarism of mangling the Scottish city: MON-TROSE or MONTR-OSE.
We come to English. And weep!
In English too, the principle of division is syllabification. One would have thought that so [1] (I may add that all bold-face entry words in Webster are syllabized.)
What do the British have to say about their bad practices?
Now it is precisely in the neglected area of word-division that Canadian writers, printers and others are demonstrating an attitude, and hence a practice, which can only be called original. It is also characterized by simplicity, and a certain lofty insouciant detachment. They use the computer. When the automatic typesetter or photocomposer comes to the last space of the line, it zaps in a hyphen and carries over the remainder of the word.
Let’s be serious for a minute –if one can get serious about computers: “So far [I have] assumed that a decision will be taken by the typist or typesetter each time a word needs to be broken. When computers are used for typesetting, such decisions are made by the computer according to the rules which have been programmed into it. “The two main approaches to word division in computerised typesetting are represented by the logic system and the dictionary system. The logic system relies on the computer breaking words in accordance with a programmed set of rules. Because there are many exceptions to these rules, and because the element of human judgment is lacking, errors are inevitable. In the dictionary system, word lists indicating syllables and correct [?] divisions in coded form are fed into the computer to be stored in its ‘memory’ until required (i.e. until a word on the list requires to be broken). This system is only as effective as the number of words which can be coded and stored in the computer memory. Most systems now in use combine features of both the logic and the dictionary systems. [So many words in ‘memory’: if word not there, ‘logic’.] Some computer systems incorporate a monitoring device to provide a visual record of the setting as it progresses and to give advance warning when a decision is required for breaking a word at the end of a line. In these systems, word-division remains a matter of judgment for the operator of the machine and not an automatic function of the machine itself.” (Manuel of Style. Government of Australia Publications. Did I say ‘Canadian practice?)
Canadian computerised typesetting, I regret to have to report, is far from being as professional as the system described. One actually does find a mathematical and mechanical division which is literally designed to zap in a hyphen in the last space of the typographical line, irrespective of what is to be carried over. Who has not seen a lonely looking apostrophe or other punctuation mark, or a single letter (which would have nicely filled the end of the preceding line) carried over?
But it is not all shrug and sneer! Among the word divisions we find some that can only be described as creative and genial! If you have to split contentious words be careful you do it in a place that does not cause offence or vulgarity. Thus: with hither do not hit-her; or heather do not heat-her with scholarship avoid scholars-hip; bishopric (what is a ‘bisho’?). What, for that matter, is a ‘trate’, as in demons-trate? and a ‘orker’, as in cow-orker?
Can anyone explain how you ‘draise’ ‘fun’ – as in ‘fun-draising’? Do we need an aristocratic urologist to explain a ‘pee-rage’?
Bear in mind the only principle that matters and you will avoid hurting people’s feelings. For how else could you make ‘therapist’ become ‘the-rapist’!
the prize goes to the beauty contestant who stands way out in front!
But stay! What see I here? I am perchance being a bit hasty! I have been laying it on to penny-pinching publishers and cheap computers. Is there not another possibility? Do you recall the simple, unerring principle governing the division of French words? Have you not noticed it? Are those faulty and damaging divisions of English words divided, not by computer whimsy, but precisely according to the French principle? Can it be. . .? Supposing it is not an accident attributable to the capitalist principle, but a plot attributable to political un-principle! Has the trade of computer programmers been infiltrated by Quebec operators bent on sabotaging the English language and on getting a linguistic revenge? This is a case for CSIS or the CIA! C’est à rendre fou! Franglais? This is going too far!
If these three, or four, systems and practices are obviously unsatisfactory, we reach the momentous conclusion that the best solution is perhaps a large measure of common sense plus a watchful eye to avoid misleading the reader — if only common sense were not so far from being common. If we may wonder, with Fowler, “whether so simple a matter is worth an intelligent person’s attention,” I prefer, rather than attempt to address that doubt, to conclude by quoting the OUP of N.Y. stylebook
Multiplication is vexation
Subtraction is as bad!
The rule of three doth puzzle me,
Division drives me mad.
[1] The late Dr. John Sykes, former general editor of the Oxford English Dictionaries, told me several years ago that the OUP were preparing a dictionary in which the main entries will be syllabized.
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