What-Ever

Reuters reports that about 16,000 words in the new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary have dropped their hyphens, "as informal ways of communicating, honed in text messages and emails, spread on Web sites and seep into newspapers and books." Why? According to the editor of the Shorter OED, people have lost their hyphen confidence, and they make typography ugly.

Formerly hyphenated words now split into two:

• fig leaf
• hobby horse
• ice cream
• pin money
• pot belly
• test tube
• water bed

Formerly hyphenated words now unified into one:

• bumblebee
• chickpea
• crybaby
• leapfrog
• logjam
• lowlife
• pigeonhole