I use this word frequently in my work, but am not entirely sure whether it should be ‘coordinator’, ‘co-ordinator’ or even ‘co ordinator’. That’s coordinator as in one who co-ordinates, keeps things together.
Dictionaries are inconsistent on this, so I need a definitive answer in order to be consistent with myself.
Any thoughts on this one?
or even possibly “coördinator”.
Oh wow, the possibilities suddenly seem endless…
But that looks really silly for us who regard ö as a completely different character.
It’s coordinator, see dictionary…
http://www.onelook.com/?w=coordinator&ls=a
This is one of those cases where there is no truly right or wrong answer (although “co ordinator” does not crop up in any dictionaries I’ve seen).
It’s more a case of the style guide of the publication you’re writing for.
The paper I work for, for instance, says:
Figure that one out! And FWIW, my Collins dictionary lists both the unhyphenated and hyphenated forms, with the unhyphenated one given first.
I like “coördinator,” but I’m kind of old-fashioned. Sorry, Floater, the “ö” character means something completely different in English than in Swedish.
The trend in English is to remove the diaeresis for the hyphen and then remove the hyphen. With coordinator we are at the point at which removing the hyphen is considered to be entirely correct.
My Fowler’s second edition has this to say:
If old fogy Fowler says this, you are certainly safe to follow his advice.