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Possible Duplicate:
Use of hyphens when writing repeated compound words that has common parts
I am looking for a general way of shortening the repetition of words with prefixes like "upwards and downwards", "inputs and outputs", "upscale and downscale", etc. Is there an accepted way to shorten this in writing?
In spoken English we do something like "up and downwards" or "in and outputs".
I've seen both of these in writing:
English-speakers sometimes write "up- and downscale" and the like. But I think for the most part, we just don't shorten it. You write "upscale and downscale", and the fact that the suffix is repeated is just how it is.
