Since everybody's talking about them, let's all take the lead from Sasha Frere-Jones and correctly refer to "mashups" as such. You don't want to be embarrassed in a few months that you used to hyphenate "mash-up" as if it were "down-load" or "on-line"—and you don't have to be.
And as far as I'm concerned, Freelance Hellraiser's "A Stroke of Genius" squeezes the Gospel truth out of Xtina and The Strokes.
UPDATE: My roommate was just noting that though the New Yorker adheres to Fowler's antihyphen instruction better than any out there, they like to throw the odd German diacritical at household words like "cooperative." True. They also refer to the MoMA as "The Modern." So let me be clear that I'm with S F/J on mashups, but not all the kinky stuff the New Yorker favors.
Posted by Kriston at January 10, 2005 10:52 PMThe New Yorker also sends fact checkers to Sydney, Australia, to verify the angle at which the sun sets over the harbor at a certain time of year. They are weirdos.
On hyphenation, I think we need an approximately five-year period with the hyphen, during which time we can all get used to pronouncing the word correctly (MASH-ups, rather than, say, mash-UPS, as someone might bungle it without the handy hyphen there to guide the way).
Posted by: Dimmy Karras at January 10, 2005 11:39 PMThey also refer to the MoMA as "The Modern."
"MoMA" is of relatively recent vintage. Calling it "The Modern" was once the norm and is far more pleasing even if a bit affected nowadays. I'd do it myself if I could get away with it.
Posted by: Miguel Sánchez at January 11, 2005 6:17 AMIs there a hyphen in anal-retentive??????
Posted by: cc at January 11, 2005 11:39 AMThe "odd German diacritical" in words like cooperative is a diaeresis , not an umlaut.
(Not sure if I can link in comments; if not see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaeresis .)
Posted by: Mark at January 11, 2005 8:56 PMOh yeah! Nice catch. I haven't thought about that one in a long time. Though in AmEng I do believe it's "dieresis"—not sure if the alternant is BrEng or archaic.
Posted by: Kriston at January 12, 2005 11:32 AMI can top "99 Luft Balloons."
First two songs here:
http://halley.lunarpages.com/~djbc002/beastles/
~Seth
Posted by: seth at January 12, 2005 8:50 PMI like seeing the two dots over words such as reelection. I think it gives them a special exotic flair. Otherwise, they'd be as bland as oatmeal.
I am also a fan of the promiscuous use of hyphenation for the purpose of promoting analytic transparency, among other reasons that are too numerous to list.
Posted by: Chuck at January 13, 2005 1:30 PM