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From: marcel@cs.caltech.edu (Marcel van der Goot)
Newsgroups: comp.text.tex
Subject: Re: LaTeX: Hyphenation Problem
Keywords: hyphenation, dutch
Message-ID: <1991Jun20.203519.12431@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 20 Jun 91 20:35:19 GMT
References: <1991Jun14.191028.14533@fys.ruu.nl> <1991Jun18.095110.781@lsl.co.uk> <4957@gmdzi.gmd.de>
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Organization: California Institute of Technology (CS dept)
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Robin Fairbairns (robin@lsl.co.uk) wrote:
> Am I to understand that this is another instance in which TeX is 
> not-quite-perfect for the non English-speaking world?  Oh woe!

TeX is not perfect of course, but is capable of solving the problem.
You simply say
	\lccode`\-=`\- \hyphenchar\the\font=`\#
and voila, TeX will hyphenate words containing a `-'. There is only one
drawback: if TeX hyphenates a word it uses a `#' instead of a `-', as in
	\showhyphens{hyphenation}

	Underfull \hbox (badness 10000) detected at line 0
	[] \tenrm hy#phen#ation
To solve that, the font should contain two hyphen symbols, one in the
normal position and one in the position for `#'.

Charles Geyer (geyer@galton.uchicago.edu) declared in the same thread:
> 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.

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Finally, Werner Icking (icking@gmdzi.gmd.de) remarked:
> But in this special case most German writers don't know enough German.
> They often write a "-" when the rules do not allow this: black-and-white
> film (sp?) Schwarz-Weiss-Film is wrong; Schwarzweissfilm is correct.

Same is true for Dutch; most hyphens that are written should be omitted.
``Aardappelmeelfabriek,'' not ``aardappelmeel-fabriek'' or other horrors.
(aard=earth, appel=apple, meel=flour/starch, fabriek=factory)


                                          Marcel van der Goot
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