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26 lines
1.6 KiB
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# Is it spelled “nonbinary” or “non-binary”?
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<small>2022-11-28 | [@andrea](/@andrea)</small>
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Is it spelled “nonbinary” or “non-binary”? 🤔
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Well, it's simple: both spellings are correct.
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For example,
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Wiktionary prefers [the version with a hyphen](https://web.archive.org/web/20221120023639/https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/non-binary)
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and [calls the other one an “alternative spelling”](https://web.archive.org/web/20220724013720/https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nonbinary),
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while Merriam-Webster [has an entry for “nonbinary”](https://web.archive.org/web/20221119200219/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonbinary)
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and redirects the hyphenated version to it.
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At the moment Google shows 13.7M results for `"nonbinary"` and 38.9M results for `"non-binary"`.
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[Wikipedia's article on the topic](https://web.archive.org/web/20221120072119/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binary_gender)
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uses the hyphen in its title but there's plenty of occurrences of unhyphenated “nonbinary” throughout the text.
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Basically: both spellings are being used widely and are correct.
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And it's not like this word is special. [According to Wiktionary](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/non-#English)
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prefix “non-” can be hyphenated or not in _all_ words that use it (“non-disclousure”, “nonviolent”, “non-stop”, …),
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except when the root is capitalised (“non-Swedish”, …).
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Personally, I prefer “nonbinary” because it's simpler, and _to me_ it sounds more like an identity in its own rights
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rather than existing only in opposition to something (the hyphen gives too much emphasis on the "non" part, IMO).
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But that's just me 🤷
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