1. Compound and derivative words are resolved into their primitives; as, school-master, hand-writing, pen-knife, snuff-box, looking-glass; arch-angel, geo-logy, theo-cracy, ortho-graphy.
2. Prefixes, affixes, and grammatical terminations are separated; as, dis-continue, en-able, trans-port; shear-er, load-ed, print-ing; king-dom, false-hood, differ-ence, command-ment.
3. One consonant between two vowels is to be joined to the latter syllable; as, ta-lent, fa-tal; me-lon, le-ver; spi-rit, si-lence; cy-nic, ty-ro; le-ga-cy, mo-no-po-ly. Except x, and single consonants when they belong to the former portion of a derivative word; as, ex-ile, ex-ist, ex-amine; up-on, dis-ease, circum-ambient.
4. Two or more consonants belong to the latter syllable, when they are capable of beginning a word; as, ta-ble, sti-fle, lu-cre, o-gle, mau-gre, stro-phe, de-stroy.
5. But when the consonants cannot begin a word, or when the vowel preceding them is short, the first should be separated; as, ab-bey, ac-cent, vel-lum, ab-ject, gar-den, laun-dry, pam-phlet; blas-pheme, dis-tress, min-strel.
It is desirable that compound and derivative words should, at the end of lines, be divided in such a manner as to indicate their principal parts. Thus, school-master is preferable to schoolmas-ter, dis-approve to disap-prove, resent-ment to re-sentment, ortho-doxy to or-thodoxy; though, as regards the analysis of words into syllables, the latter mode is unobjectionable. From the narrowness of the printed line, however, in some books, the principle recommended cannot always be adhered to.
The terminations tion, sion, cial, tial, and many others, formerly pronounced as two syllables, but now only as one, must not be divided either in spelling or at the end of a line.
A syllable consisting of only one letter, as the a in cre-ation, should not commence a line. This word would be better divided crea-tion; and so all others of a similar kind.
A line of print must not end with the first syllable of a word when it consists of a single letter; as, a-bide, e-normous; nor begin with the last syllable when it is formed of only two letters; as, nation-al, teach-er, similar-ly. For regard should be had to the principles of taste and beauty as well as to the laws of syllabication.
[12] The Hebrew alphabet is almost identical with the Phœnician.