Hyper-Hyphenation

So I drive past the Harley-Davidson dealership every day. And every day I see that big sign with their logo.



So Harley riders have a rep for being bad to the bone marrow. That's cool, especially considering who Harley and the Davidsons are. See pic below that I nabbed from Wikipedia. They look pretty hardcore.

So anyway, this isn't about the nerds that look like they would be eaten by the Hell's Angels. It's about H-D's choice in hyphenation (as if there is even such a thing as choice in hyphenation). Hyphenations should be a strictly enforced law; (I think my next blog will be about why fatalism is dumb). Though Harley's bad-bottom rep, they look like they could know their way around a well-punctuated sentence, right?

Anyway so they hyphenate Harley-Davidison (the names of the founders) but not the split word motorcycles. It's one word (or as we in the biz call it, a closed compound). Actually it might not be considered a closed compound. Whatever. Doesn't matter. Point is that that sucker should either read straight across as motorcycles or be hyphenated if it is broken, implementing correct hyphen usage.

What is their reasoning? They can't hate hyphens, because they chose to hyphenate Harley and Davidson as if Harley married Davidson (which wasn't entirely legal in their day BTW).

So I took the liberty of correcting their logo. Now If only they could edit their giant one off the freeway. How much does a cherry picker cost to rent? And BTW I was kidding about the choice in hyphenation; there actually is a lot of –ugh- choice in somethings (but there shoudn't be a question about whether or not to hyphenate when a word is broken and finished on the next line).