On horrible hyphens and little specky dots (STYLE MANUAL)

E-470 (in the news column) like to render themselves with the hyphen to which we grudgingly concede they are entitled in a free country. But what the heck does their damned hyphen mean? Nothing. Zip, zilch, zero. It is a totally wasted keystroke and an unnecessary ink blob.

So in these pages they are E470.

The world has far too much waste and clutter.

Same with 407ETR. They don't get a hyphen either, despite being an advertiser.

And on these pages you should never see Mr. or I.B.M. or U.S.

We recently got a bio of a man who added Esq. to the end of his name. A squire eh, better than a mere gentleman, but not making claims to being knightly. Gawd. DELETE. Never on these pages will the silly medieval class notations be reproduced either at front or back of names. The suffix Jr. at the end of a name is OK for an 8 year old but is positively ridiculous on someone aged 60.

Interstates deserve a hyphen "I-" because that helps distinguish the Aye from a One. Hence I-95 but US95. Texans used to add a superfluous H, thus IH-35 in case you thought it might be an oil pipeline rather than a Highway. They seem to have caught on to the great economies of simple I-35.

Both conventional British (Day/Month/Year) and American (Month/Day/Year) date numbering systems are stupid.

You need to establish the year first and then proceed down through lesser units of time (Year/Month/Day) and sometimes hour and minute. Then so long as you add a zero before single digit days and months, the dates will sort themselves nicely in order, a big bonus in the age of computers.

Of course today should be rendered hyphenless as 20080822 rather than our 2008-08-22.

There the horrible hyphens are - we concede - a cowardly compromise with convention.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-08-22