Abbreviate one noun when combined with another that has same ending

Question

Sorry for the probably a bit inappropriate title, I also didn't really know what to google for.

My question is, if a have a sentense like "... due to the lack of scalability and maintainability" can I get rid of the first "ability" and combine it to "... due to the lack of scal- and maintainability" like you could do in German with "... aufgrund von fehlender Skalier- und Wartbarkeit"?

You can see the related usage that is allowable in English, the 'suspended hyphen' (eg at How to use hyphens appropriately when listing multiple hyphenated terms, though there is a tag). — Edwin Ashworth, Jan 09 '20 at 11:21
Since the words are not inherently hyphenated, I don't think you can do that in English. — Apollonian, Jan 09 '20 at 12:40
You really shouldn't do that for scalability and maintainability; that looks horrible. There are non-hyphenated words that you can do this for, such as land- and seascapes. What's the difference? I'm not sure, but I think the difference is that -scape feels like a morpheme, whereas -ability just feels like a suffix. — Peter Shor, Jan 09 '20 at 12:47
I agree, but probably rather because "scal" as such is not a word. So I'll go then with the original separated version. — po.pe, Jan 09 '20 at 13:35
@Peter Shor ... pan- and cupcakes and paper- and hatchbacks don't work, though various forms of paper[-] and hardbacks are met. I think the referents need to be very similar. — Edwin Ashworth, Jan 10 '20 at 18:16
@po.pe: "due to the lack of maintain- and portability" doesn't work either. The problem is not just that scal- is not a word. — Peter Shor, Jan 10 '20 at 18:20

score -1 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 10 '20 at 15:54

-1

No, can't do that in English. Also very wordy sentence which doesn't flow very well with such repetition. Would it be possible to refer to the lack of ability to scale and maintenance?

edited Jan 10 '20 at 15:54

Yosef Baskin

6,768

answered Jan 10 '20 at 15:27

Keith Farrell

19

Or, rather than say "Y is due to the lack of scalability and maintainability of X", say "Y happened because X cannot be scaled or maintained"? (I'd need more context to be sure, but I wonder if the subject of "is due..." is the nounification of a verb denoting an action, and it would be better to refer to the action using the verb.) – Rosie F Jan 10 '20 at 16:45

Abbreviate one noun when combined with another that has same ending

1 Answers1

Linked