Hyphenation of string: multimeasure vs multi-measure

The current way to spell this string is with a hyphen (7x occurrences of multimeasure), e.g. typically “multimeasure rest(s)”. This is also how the handbook writes it.

Looking at the latest round (v3.6 Beta) of strings released for translation, I see 3x new strings using “multi-measure”. For consistency’s sake, for now we will align these strings with the current convention (multimeasure), but it did get me thinking what the better spelling is (to me multi-measure looks more correct).

Arguments for “multimeasure”

No effort

… since this maintains the status quo.

Web resources

... like the following say it should not be hyphenated

• https://visualeditorialstandards.psu.edu/editorial-style-manual/hyphens/
• https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/118021/existence-of-multi-i…

Arguments for “multi-measure”

Google search results

Looking at Google results (I found that Google is not looking for exact matches even with quotes around the search term), the below results give a strong preference (esp for multi-measure repeat(s)):

(plurals in brackets)

• "multimeasure rest" 3,050 (4,680)
• "multi-measure rest" 7,800 (4,950)

• "multi measure rest" 8,380 (5,150)

• "multimeasure repeat" 10 (9)

• "multi-measure repeat" 3,390 (993) includes non-hyphenated, e.g. with space
• "multi measure repeat" 3,390 (1,010) include hyphenated variants as well

(strangely, Google Docs in which I wrote this, underlines “multimeasure” in “multimeasure repeat” as a spelling mistake, whereas it did not have a problem with multimeasure on its own, or next to “rest”.)

Consistency with other compounds with “-measure”

Another argument for multi-measure is that hyphenated it would be consistent with $DIGIT-measure strings, e.g. two-measure / four-measure repeats, which are hyphenated.

Conclusion

Based on the very low occurrences of the non-hyphenated (no space) in Google, I would suggest we consider switching to the hyphenated variant in code and handbook (unless there was a prior discussion that favours multimeasure over multi-measure).

If the consensus is to switch, it may make sense to do it now before the remaining PR of GSoC 2020 Work Product: New and Improved Multimeasure Rests and Measure Repeats is merged (I expect multi-measure repeats to get A LOT of publicity and attention once it goes live).