🚀 go-pugleaf

From: Robert Stanley <roberts@cognos%math.waterloo.edu>
Date: 30 Jun 87 22:46:51 GMT
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada

>From: munnari!astra.necisa.oz!dave@seismo.CSS.GOV (Dave Horsfall)
>Someone (I forget who; sorry) gave a classical hypenation blunder.

>The real all-time classic is of course the-
>rapist.

This raises the problem of how to hyphenate all those wonderfully misused
english words that make up our techno-speak and techno-babble!  My favourite
remains:

	completing the project required many many-
	ears more than originally estimated.

I regret that I can no longer remember which formatter's error led to this
splendid bloop.  However, much of our agglomerated jargon usage lends itself to
what the natural language people call 'garden path' constructions, particularly
when an inapposite hyphenation lends a hand (to mix a metaphor).  This is an
area where I think only a true ai-based solution is likely to yield results,
and probably one that is capable of learning, given our propensity for making
up new words whenever we are not quite sure of what we are saying.  After all,
what we are really addressing is the question of readability, and as yet this
lies in the realms of artistry rather than science.

I seem to recall a study published a few years ago that conducted experiments
in information assimilation speed and accuracy from printed text.  One of the
variables was fully justified versus ragged-right text, and memory says that
ragged-right resulted in faster and more accurate comprehension.  Unfortunately
I don't remember the context and don't have the report to hand, but if this is
so, then why do we need hyphenation?  Perhaps someone out there has some hard
data to contribute?

Art is any application of science involving more than 3 simultaneous variables.

-- 
Robert Stanley             decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!roberts
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