Haplography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Haplography is the act of writing once what should be written twice. For example, the English word idolatry, the worship of idols, comes from the Greek eidololatreia, but one syllable has been lost through haplography. Other examples are "endontics" for endodontics, "tillate" for titillate.

There are various instances of conventionalized haplography in English. For example, the normal punctuation mark for a declarative sentence in English is a period. However, if a declarative sentence ends with a word that is abbreviated with a period (e.g., etc., Ltd., or Inc.), the sentence-final punctuation mark is ommitted. This is clear by comparison with other sentence types, such as interrogative or exclamative sentences, where the punctuation doubles up at the end.

• Philip K. Dick wrote the novel Lies, Inc.
• Who wrote the novel Lies, Inc.?
• It was so Philip K. Dick who wrote the novel Lies, Inc.!

[edit] See also

• Dittography
• Textual criticism
• Haplology