Use of the Hyphen to Indicate Divided Words

Abstract

The unsystematic employment of hyphenation by early printers led to the author’s inspection of incunabula and reproductions of manuscripts and incunabular printing. These observations showed a gradual standardization of the typographic form of the hyphen, an evolution of the phonetic division of words from arbitrary academic rules, and a slow development of the universal employment of the hyphen to indicate divided words. These trends in the history of printing suffered a reversal during the sixteenth century, and it was not until the late seventeenth century that hyphenating practices as they are observed today were generally established.