[whatwg] Editorial: hyphenating start tag and end tag

[Ian Hickson]

On Fri, 1 Dec 2006, Elliotte Harold wrote:
>
> The XML 1.0 and most related specifications use the hyphenated spellings
> "start-tag" and "end-tag". The Web Apps 1.0 spec uses the unhyphenated forms
> "start tag" and "end tag".

The XML form seems grammatically incorrect. "tag" is a noun, "start" and 
"end" here are acting as adjectives. The correct English grammar form for 
this two-word term would use a space, not a hyphen. (The term "two-word" 
in the previous sentence is grammatically correct because it is taking an 
adjective and a noun and turning it into a single adjective in front of 
another noun.)

Anyway, again, this is a very minor detail, which is probably left for 
when the spec is stable enough that we're not at risk of dropping entire 
sections. No need to worry about wording when the words themselves might 
not survive. :-)

-- 
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