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From: spit@fys.ruu.nl (Werenfried Spit)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: LaTeX: Hyphenation Problem
Message-ID: <1991Jun20.074405.24457@fys.ruu.nl>
Date: 20 Jun 91 07:44:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: fys.1991Jun20.074405.24457
References: <1991Jun19.164316.16358@midway.uchicago.edu>
Organization: Physics Department, University of Utrecht
Lines: 25

In <1991Jun19.164316.16358@midway.uchicago.edu> geyer@galton.uchicago.edu writes:


>In article <1991Jun19.135807.3082@fys.ruu.nl> spit@fys.ruu.nl
>(Werenfried Spit) writes:

>> True, but the problem remains, as TeX (without special tricks) will
>> not hypnhenate words containing an explicit hyphen. Even if the patterns
>> tell clearly how each of the constituing members could be hyphenated.

>That is because TeX does the Right Thing.  It is not correct to further
>hyphenate words already containing a hyphen, unless nothing else can be
>done.  Generally a copyeditor can avoid the troublesome hyphen by
>rearranging a word or two somewhere in the paragraph.

>TeX is for typesetting of the highest quality.  It can't do what you
>want without compromising that quality.

What I was telling one or two postings earlier was that languages like
german or dutch have agglutinating possiblities that make very long words
with and without explicit hyphens rather common. This means that applying
the mentioned typographical rule may get you in more serious typographical 
trouble sometimes.
In other languages than english TeX should *also* give you the highest
quality.