Talk:Low-Earth orbit

Misspelling or not?

This redirect's classification is possibly wrong. Per discussion at User_talk:Topbanana#Compound_adjectives, this should perhaps be marked up as {{R from punctuation}} rather than {{R from misspelling}}. - TB (talk) 17:44, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My initial though is that it is bad English. Where the subject of an adjective is unclear, hyphenating to make a compound adjective is useful; compare "I saw a man-eating crocodile" (eek!) with "I saw a man eating crocodile". (yum!). Here, the hyphenated compound adjective clarifies the meaning to an "orbit of low-Earth" rather than the (I suspect) intended "low-orbit of Earth". - TB (talk) 17:56, 11 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The adjective form is "low-Earth-orbit", so this "low-Earth orbit" is just wrong. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 13:55, 21 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What would "low-Earth-orbit" modify? A low-Earth-orbit spacecraft is a spacecraft which orbits the Earth at a low altitude, I suppose.

Low-Earth orbit isn't wrong, it's just unnecessary as everyone understands the meaning without any hyphen. "Low-Earth" modifies "orbit" and describes the type of orbit – in this case the orbit is (a) low (orbit of the) Earth. As opposed to a low-Moon orbit, which is a low orbit of the Moon. Looking at this from the other angle, "low Earth-orbit" describes the type of Earth orbit, in this case, a low one. That's also correct, but unnecessary. Both terms essentially describe the same thing, but where the hyphen is located determines where to put the emphasis. You either emphasize the type of orbit (a "low Earth" orbit) or the height of the Earth orbit (a low "Earth orbit"). As there is rarely any reason to emphasize the type over the height or the height over the type, there is rarely, if ever, a need for the hyphen.

In general, I think Wikipedia editors tend to think their readers are stupid, and need to have obvious things explained to them. Hence they tend to (over-)use optional hyphens.

I took this out of the "misspelling" category, as it's not so bad as it should usurp priority from true misspellings. – wbm1058 (talk) 12:46, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some relevant discussion at Talk:Low Earth orbit#Article title? -TB (talk) 12:07, 2 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]