Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Joseph S. Myers]

In the GCC manuals, which of the spellings "nonzero" and "non-zero" should
be used?  At present both are.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm28@cam.ac.uk

Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Florian Weimer]

Brad Lucier <lucier@math.purdue.edu> writes:

> To weigh in again in this debate, the Society of Industrial and
> Applied Mathematics recommends that "non" as a prefix
> not be hyphenated, that "semi" be hyphenated, and that "quasi"
> be a separate word.

What a strange rule!  I haven't read much literature on semigroups, so
I don't know if it is customary to put a hyphen in it, "semi-group"
looks indeed rather strange.  I've never seen "semi-simple" and "quasi
projective".

Perhaps SIAM made these rules only to annoy algebraists? ;-)

Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Gerald Pfeifer]

Okay, I'm convinced: "nonzero" it is.

Thanks for all who contributed feedback, on the lists or privately,
Gerald

PS: And now, let's go for something more important and fix some bugs. ;-)

Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Geert Bosch]

As a final drop, the GNU Coding Standards uses nonzero unhyphenated:

|  There should be a comment on each static variable as well, like this: 
|
|  /* Nonzero means truncate lines in the display;
|     zero means continue them.  */
|  int truncate_lines; 

  -Geert

Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Brad Lucier]

> > In the GCC manuals, which of the spellings "nonzero" and "non-zero" should
> > be used?  At present both are.
> 
> Mathematics journals definitely prefer "nonzero" (no hyphen).

To weigh in again in this debate, the Society of Industrial and
Applied Mathematics recommends that "non" as a prefix
not be hyphenated, that "semi" be hyphenated, and that "quasi"
be a separate word.  However, in a paper where I used
both "quasi norm" and "semi-norm" I insisted that both be
written with hyphens, as semi-norm and quasi-norm, and the
copy editor acquiesced.

This Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition, recommends that the
following prefixes be used closed (unhyphenated): 
non, ante, anti, bi, bio, co, counter, extra,
infra, inter, intra, macro, meta, micro, mid, mini, multi, neo,
non, over, post, pre, pro, proto, pseudo, re, semi, socio,
sub, super, supra, trans, ultra, un, under
(Table 6.1, page 230).  The exceptions
are capitalized works (anti-Semitic), numerals (pre-1914),
English homonyms (un-ionized, not unionized), more than
one word (non-English-speaking [using a hyphen, since
English-speaking is hyphenated], pre-Civil War [using an
en-dash, since Civil War is open]), prefix standing alone
(macro- and microeconomics), repeated vowels
(anti-inflammatory), misleading or puzzling forms
(anti-utopian).

Brad

Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Joseph S. Myers]

On 8 Oct 2001, Russ Allbery wrote:

> The 1989 OED prefers non-zero (as in it has an entry for that and has no
> entry for nonzero), but it may be out of date.

However, a 1951 quotation it gives for non-zero uses the spelling nonzero
(both spellings are also used in quotations for other words), so the usage
is clearly well-established.

-- 
Joseph S. Myers
jsm28@cam.ac.uk

Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Phil Edwards]

On Mon, Oct 08, 2001 at 08:50:40PM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> >> In the GCC manuals, which of the spellings "nonzero" and "non-zero" should
> >> be used?  At present both are.
> 
> > Mathematics journals definitely prefer "nonzero" (no hyphen).
> 
> The 1989 OED prefers non-zero (as in it has an entry for that and has no
> entry for nonzero), but it may be out of date.  Nonzero without a hyphen
> does appear in the current Merriam-Webster.

Funny you should mention that; there's currently a thread in comp.std.c++
which had a brief side discussion over whether Merriam-Webster was an
appropriate dictionary in technical arenas.  :-)

My only thought is that non-zero might be easier to parse for people who
are not as familiar with English.[*]


Phil
[*] ...such as the editors of the OED, har har har- just kidding!

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Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Russ Allbery]

Brad Lucier <lucier@math.purdue.edu> writes:

> Re:
>> In the GCC manuals, which of the spellings "nonzero" and "non-zero" should
>> be used?  At present both are.

> Mathematics journals definitely prefer "nonzero" (no hyphen).

The 1989 OED prefers non-zero (as in it has an entry for that and has no
entry for nonzero), but it may be out of date.  Nonzero without a hyphen
does appear in the current Merriam-Webster.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)             < http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ >

Re: Manual style: "non-zero" vs "nonzero"

[Brad Lucier]

Re:

> In the GCC manuals, which of the spellings "nonzero" and "non-zero" should
> be used?  At present both are.

Mathematics journals definitely prefer "nonzero" (no hyphen).

Brad Lucier