ODE Infected With Stupidity

From a recent Oxford Dictionary of English press release (and the "Don't worries. I gots an idea. I mean, an ideas." dept.):

The hyphen is being dropped from standard compounds such as TURNING-POINT but is now appearing in verb phrases (e.g. 'this website was SET-UP by Vicky'). Our research shows that such uses are twice as common as they were ten years ago and yet overall the hyphen is now used only half as much as it was in 1993. For example, E-MAILS have become EMAILS and we are twice as likely to COOPERATE than CO-OPERATE . We are now ONLINE not ON-LINE . The apostrophe is disappearing from where you would expect to see it (e.g. LETS GO ) and is appearing elsewhere (as in the plural PEAR'S ).

This is wrong. Very wrong. SET-UP is an adjective or noun, not a verb; PEAR'S is possessive, not plural; LETS GO is nothing at all.

The ODE says these things are "appearing". Where? In "blogs" written by illiterate Philistines? I read a lot of things, and never do I see such incorrect punctuation, except unintentionally, either as simple mistakes by people who know better, or as glaring errors by the mass illiterati who don't.

I eagerly anticipate the deaths of Williams F. Buckley and Safire, that they might be able to turn in their respective graves!

Perhaps the time for apostrophic jihad truly has arrived.

NOTE This is not the esteemed OED, but the ODE, a nasty impostor. Text above has been corrected.

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