Crossword Help Forum
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Over time, the pedants on the Forum have had gripes about all sorts of things - grammar, language, duff announcements from tv commentators... We've discussed ravioli and raviolo, the epicentre of earthquakes, actors and actresses and a whole host of other things. The thread can - and does - wander off topic at times, with the occasional bit of banter, silly anecdotes and so on.

Please feel free to join in - with a moan, a gripe, or even just to report an errant or missing apostrophe.

Not a moan or a gripe, confused rather.
I no longer know what to write: where are we heading?

Fairy tale, fairy-tale or fairytale
On line. on-line or online
Kick start, kick-start or kickstart
etc. etc.

Any thoughts or advice?

I get irritated when hyphens intrude in the wrong place. I carry out my banking on line, but sometimes I need to have an on-line conversation. I thinks it's creeping (galloping?) Americanisation (Americanization?). Now interestingly (to me, anyway) the former A-word has just been tastefully underlined by my PC as it thinks I've spelt (spelled?) it wrong (wrongly?). With an "s" it's standard English, but Americans (and Scots, of whom I am one) spell it with a "z". (This is called a zed by some and a zee by others - including me, who does it to annoy.) Where was I? The usual hyphen problem is its wrongful insertion into a noun where it is properly needed in an adjective. (And verbing adjectives (or nouns) is another thing: don't get me started.)) I enjoy my spare time during which I indulge in spare-time activities. But I bet someone somewhere thinks that what I enjoy is my spare-time. I'll shut up now. Happy New Year to all, pedants. Or do I mean Happy New Year to all pedants?

On the S/Z thing, all of the relevant words can be spelt with an S, but only some with a Z. Spelling them all with an S saves having to remember which are which!

geting @2

I don't like the hyphens in any of those. I favour fairytale and online as adjectives. Definitely fairy tale when tale is a noun. Kickstart as one word, whether verb or noun. Haven't checked any of that with a dictionary.

I am still being irritated by rammed instead of crammed. Also 'lay-in' for 'lie-in' and the misuse of lie, lay, lying, laying, lain, laid in general.

I recently set FAIRYTALE as a Peer Review word. There was the option of (9) or (5,4) but definitely not (5-4).

Jono, that was what actually what got me thinking about the issue, because I discovered all three variants seemed to be in use.

ChrisE, that's a very useful tip - I think I seldom used the Z anyway, but my dratted phone opts for that, unasked.

As to the other remarks, hyphens are a dashed nuisance at times.

Very sharp from Rob Jacques (“Knut”) I thought…

L Truss: "Oh no...I destroyed its credibility" (7,4)

yes, very nice, jono!