- Weird languages. In German it's quite common to use that character to shorten the monster words. Pulling samples from my reared (note the disclaimer about being not to serious)
Lebens- und Krankenversicherung
(Shorthand for Lebensversicherung und Krankenversicherung)
The inverse is possible, but less common as far as I am aware
Arbeitsplatz und -Umfeld
(Arbeitsplatz und Arbeitsumfeld?)
Looks ugly to me and the samples are pre-coffee, but this is definitely possible.
All good points. I would say that lists like that are also abuse; the hyphens there ought to be · or something similar. But it certainly appears in the wild. (Similarly, in formal contexts, the negative sign is − and not -, but very few people care.)
The last usage is also possible in English. A construction like “face-huggers and -eaters” is rare but not outlandish.
Two (not entirely serious) counterarguments:
- Lists like this
- Abusing the char as em-dash
- Weird languages. In German it's quite common to use that character to shorten the monster words. Pulling samples from my reared (note the disclaimer about being not to serious)
The inverse is possible, but less common as far as I am aware Looks ugly to me and the samples are pre-coffee, but this is definitely possible.