What a great topic!  And I'll bet you realized by the end of it that you
hadn't quite exhausted the possibilities of a word that takes up about
30 screens on the OED Online.  We've had a fair number of dissertations
written here on various aspects of definiteness in English and other
languages.  It's a near inexhaustible topic.

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Katz, Seth
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2007 10:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Hyphen or no?

I'm with you, Kathleen: my dissertation was on the word "the."  We're
not boring; we're exotic!
 
Dr. Seth Katz                                                     
Assistant Professor     |   Faculty Advisor
Department of English   |   Bradley University Hillel
Bradley University      |                             

________________________________

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Kathleen
M. Ward
Sent: Thu 5/31/2007 6:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Hyphen or no?


I'd say no hyphen. 

The case might be different if  "well defined" were functioning as  f a
modifier before a noun, but that is not the situation here.

I once wrote a paper with a computer scientist on hyphenation of
compound modifiers.  Okay, I officially have the world's most boring
life.

Kathleen Ward
UC Davis




On May 31, 2007, at 4:34 PM, Jane Saral wrote:


	Here's a question from my daughter the neophyte healthcare
lawyer.  I guess they have to talk about mice.
	 
	Should there be a hyphen or not here?
	
	Mice are used for this work because they are genetically
well-defined.
	 
	Jane Saral
	Atlanta, GA
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