# Café Society **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 15, 2004, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607 "2004-09-15T22:32:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607/41 "2004-09-17T04:22:25Z")
The _New Yorker_ stubbornly uses “coöperate” instead “cooperate” or “co-operate”. Now **that’s** an affectation. ---
**Author:** ![tygerbryght](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9a28c/32.png) [@tygerbryght](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tygerbryght)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607/42 "2004-09-18T08:46:29Z")
> [@InvidiousCourgette](#): > > … does it not behove us to adopt the same until the situation is reversed? I can’t believe that nobody else has called **IC** on “behove”. 😕 I am thus far unsuccessful in finding a site which gives the complete conjugation, but IIRC, the only form which uses a single “o” is behoven (past tense, but it may be more than simple past, given how old this flinkin’ word is) 😛 A bit more tracking, and I came up with what may be the closest to a [root](http://www.bartleby.com/61/53/B0165300.html) that Middle English has for it. However, that seems to put it in the same category as roof, hoof, calf, wolf, and (glory be!) belief. My own particular frustration WRT to the evolution of usage is the near-banishment of the proper plurals of most of these words. IMO, given the weird behavior of the language commonly known as English, this set of phonemes deserves its own version of “Gravity: Not just a good idea; it’s the law” (or however it reads). There was a very good and logical reason for substituting the voiced letter for its unvoiced companion when pluralizing (my contribution for the day to the abominable practice of verbing nouns). :dubious: There may be others who maintain that it’s easier to say “hoofs” and “roofs”. I suppose I should be thankful that no one seems to be attempting to foist “calfs” and “wolfs” (which would, IMO, inevitably progress to “woofs”. Now I usually enjoy puns, but that would be truly putrid). :smack: I started to compose this post when the Board froze up on me (Thursday afternoon?) and next time I tried to logon gave me the SDMB’s version of the BSoD. ---
**Author:** ![tailake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tailake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tailake)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607/43 "2004-09-18T09:10:31Z")
Wait… hate to go off topic but I just punched in alt 1026 ( my birthday - what the heck) and got a friggin happy face . is there some master directory of these things? ---
**Author:** ![InvidiousCourgette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@InvidiousCourgette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InvidiousCourgette)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607/44 "2004-09-18T09:41:16Z")
> [@tygerbryght](#): > > I can’t believe that nobody else has called **IC** on “behove”. 😕 I suppose that an OP that was predicated on a nitpick was somewhat destined to go careering off topic. Anyway. Behoove is a US variation of the English behove. \*Colour \* me Anglo. 🙂 > [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > IIRC the response from the PTB was that they weren’t going to take the trouble to change it If this is fair reflection of the debate, then I say a pox on their houses! ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607/45 "2004-09-18T22:56:08Z")
> [@Podkayne](#): > > Pssst, **GorillaMan**. . . If you’re going to use a dash to separate thoughts in a sentence, it should be an em-dash (option-underscore on a Mac, and I won’t try for Windows) and there should be no spaces on either side of the dash: “Otherwise language would never change or evolve—if we only ever obeyed what the previous edition of a dictionary . . .” > > Two en-dashes are also an acceptable substitute. > > Or perhaps you feel you are on the cutting edge of the evolution of the language by using an en-dash with spaces around it. If so, carry on. Personally, I use two hyphens (or an em-dash, depending on the capabilities of the word processor) _with_ spaces surrounding it. Like this – you see? I do that because I discovered that back when I did it with no spaces–like this–some reading programs would refuse to do line-breaks on the em-dash or the double-hyphen, and it would treat the two words as one. And then some reading programs had really crappy search algorithms that, when you checked “find whole word only,” would be smart enough to accomodate words with . or ? or " or ! or , next to them, but not the double-hyphen or em-dash. So, to summarize, the only time I ever _don’t_ put the spaces around the em-dash or double-hyphen is when whatever I’m writing is going to be used solely in printed form – if it’s going to be distributed in electronic form, I leave the spaces in just to be safe. Well, that was a fun and pointless trek. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607/46 "2004-09-19T00:01:37Z")
> [@tailake](#): > > Wait… hate to go off topic but I just punched in alt 1026 ( my birthday - what the heck) and got a friggin happy face . is there some master directory of these things? Start - Run - ‘charmap’ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cafe-society/264607.md?page=2)