Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
English, however, is a very "flexible" language and most grammar rules can be "broken". In the majority of hypenated words, it's perfectly OK to leave out the hypen. I like to put them in, so I write "off-hand", but many people would leave it out and write "offhand". Both are equally "right" (or "wrong").
Your example of "re-creation" v. "recreation" is a good example where the hyphen does change the meaning, but any native English speaker could immediately tell from the context which was meant in any particular sentence.
As I say, virtually all printed books will break lines at a hyphen, but it's something that no e-book format (that I know of) does currently do.
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My eB1150 breaks lines at hyphens and it supports the SHY (soft hyphen) HTML code.