Re-sign vs. Resign: The Hyphen That Cost a Career

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  • #1888
    zhonglish
    Keymaster

    The newspaper headline read: CEO RESIGNS AFTER SCANDAL.

    The CEO called the editor, furious. “I did not resign! I said I would re-sign the contract!”

    “Same spelling,” said the editor.

    “There’s a hyphen!”

    “The hyphen fell out. Between editing and layout.”

    “So a punctuation mark the width of a hair cost me my job?”

    “Welcome to English,” said the editor. “Where ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I apologize’ mean the same thing — except at a funeral, where only one of them is legally admissible. Where ‘quite good’ is a compliment in America and an insult in Britain. Where ‘the bandage was wound around the wound’ is a valid sentence.”

    A long pause.

    The CEO sighed. “Print a correction.”

    They did. The correction said: CEO TO RE-SIGN AFTER SCANDAL.

    It didn’t help.

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