Why aren't colons optional?

[Tim Roberts]

grante at visi.com (Grant Edwards) wrote:
>
>I've been reading reproductions of the original printings of
>Mark Twain's works, and I've been surprised at how much
>typesetting conventions have changed in the past 100 years. If
>you go back to stuff that was printed 100 years before that
>(200 years ago) the language has changed a little, but the
>typesetting is so different that it's hard to read.

I'm always struck by how the use of the hyphen in English changed during
the 20th Century.  Old newspaper stories have MANY more hyphenated
constructs then modern stories: "We were struck by the goings-on down at
the feed-store this mid-week."  It was almost like the German habit of
turning phrases into long words.
--
- Tim Roberts, timr at probo.com
  Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.