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Keith Houston: Shady Characters (Paperback, 2014, Norton & Company, Incorporated, W. W.) 4 stars

In Shady Characters, Keith Houston weaves a fascinating trail through the nooks and crannies …

The Chicago Manual of Style( …) suggests that hyphenating more than three lines in a row is undesirable (…), yet Gunenberg managed ladders of eight consecutive hyphens.

— Shady Characters by  (Page 130 - 131)

Well, CMS is an Usonian style book. Let’s look up rules for German: »Mehrere Trennungen hintereinander sind natürlich nicht erwünscht, aber zu dulden« »Several hyphenations in a row are obviously not desirable, but to be tolerated.« (Detailtypographie, Forssman & De Jong, 8th ed., p. 130)

replied to ospalh's status

Dto. Oxford Style Manual: British not German. OSM, via Houston: »fragments of up to three letters are frowned upon« Detailtypografie (should’v looked up the -fie for the quote above) still frowns upon one letter fragments, allowed in the new German spelling rules, but leaving two on the old line and putting three on the new line is OK by Forsmann & De Jong.