I actually cannot imagine a solution to the "hyphenation problem" based on pure syntax. Or may I say, it's impossible? And it changes with time. When I was still a pupil I was teached to use "type writer" for what we called "Schreibmaschine" in German. Then it was "type-writer" for some time if I remember correctly, and nowadays everybody seems to use "typewriter". This reasonable convention was reached no sooner than we came to need a trip to the museum to see one of these things.
In German we have the absurd case that a prefix needs to be separated and postponed, though not being a regular word with a distinct
meaning. An example?
Well: A: "Lasst uns
anfangen!" B: "Ich habe schon
angefangen, aber fange du endlich
an!"
(A: "Let's start!" B: "I started already, but you should start ultimately!" or similar)
I'm not a linguist, and I don't even have a term for the "infixed perfect-prefix 'ge'" or whatever it is.
On the other hand I'm 73 now and fortunately I
never had actual need of definitely listing and counting "words".
The misuse of a single quote as a "pretty apostophe" is easily solved in RegEx by "('|’)" or even "('|’|‘)".
But national and regional or group-creating stubborn specifics will surely soon be introduced to present us with new funny nonsense once in a while.
(Editing:)
Lupp wrote:I actually cannot imagine a solution to the "hyphenation problem" based on pure syntax.
JeJe wrote:Counting all hyphenations as one word.
Yes, I thought of this one, but...
JeJe wrote:Which people might disagree with.
... was anticipated.
I would agree, however. And the example
JeJe wrote:a what-you-might-have-been-wondering-about topic
is exactly the one I would like to apply the agreement to.
On Windows 10: LibreOffice 24.2 (new numbering) and older versions, PortableOpenOffice 4.1.7 and older, StarOffice 5.2
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Lupp from München