  THE unnecessary division of a word should always be avoided. The whole word should be carried over whenever possible. 2. A word should be divided in accordance with its natural division in correct pronunciation, rather than according to derivation: e.g., knowl-edge, not know-ledge; but divide according to meaning and derivation as far as is compatible with good spacing and pronunciation: e.g., dis-pleasure, not displeas-ure. 3. A single consonant between two vowels should be joined with the first vowel if short, but with the latter if long: e.g., riv-er, ri-val; but avoid dividing words as short as these if possible. 4. When two consonants come together between two vowels the consonants should be divided: e.g., mil-lion, struc-ture. 5. When three consonants come together between two vowels the first of which is short, all which can be pronounced together go with the last syllable: e.g., han-dle, chil-dren, frus-trate, etc. 6. Whenever practicable, and always when the pronunciation of a word is peculiar, the division should come upon the vowel: e.g., pro-duct, colo-nel, sepa-rate, peo-ple, pro-gress. {53} Exceptions: words ending in -able and -ible, which should carry the vowel over into the next line. 7. The letters c and g must never be separated from the vowels e, i, and y upon which their soft sound depends: e.g., re-li-gion, ca-pa-ci-ty, etc. 8. X must never begin a syllable, j must never end one, and q must not be separated from u, which invariably follows it. 9. When used as terminations, ing, en, ed, er, est, and the plural es are considered as syllables, except when the preceding consonant is doubled, or when they follow c or g soft: e.g., speak-ing, tak-en, long-er; but lat-ter, for-cing, ran-ging. 10. Two-letter divisions should always be avoided. These words should never be divided: eleven, heaven, power, faster, finer, houses, given, flower, prayer, soften, liken, verses, listen, often, voyage, nothing, even, etc. 11. When a derivative word ends in t, the t is carried over when the accent changes: e.g., instinc-tive (instinct); but not otherwise: e.g., construct-ive (construct). 12. More than two divisions in successive lines should be avoided. 13. A division at the end of the last full line of a paragraph should be avoided. 14. A word of four letters is not divisible. Dividing words of five or six letters should be avoided if possible. {54} 15. An amount that is stated in figures should not be divided. 16. A word in the past tense, pronounced as one syllable, should not be divided: e.g., beamed. 17. The separation of two initials of a person’s name, or such combination as B.C., A.M., should be avoided. 18. A divided word that will appear on the last line of one page and the top line of the next page is to be avoided. 19. Separating a divisional mark (a) or (b) from the matter to which it pertains should be avoided. 20. Adjectives ending in -ical should be divided upon the i: e.g., musi-cal, not music-al or mu-sical. 21. Word endings -tion, -sion, -tial, -cial, -tive, etc., are treated as one syllable. 22. In compound words additional hyphens should be avoided: e.g., music-lesson, not music-les-son. Keep prefixes, roots, suffixes, etc., as distinct as possible. NOTE. Division of words in French, Italian, German, and Spanish, may be found in De Vinne’s “Correct Composition,” pp. 434–446. |
|
