6.3.3 SOFT HYPHEN (SHY)
A graphic character that is imaged by a graphic symbol
identical with, or similar to, that representing HYPHEN,
for use when a line break has been established within a word.
>
> > A quick note -- ISO 8859-1 has `minus' where most ASCII fonts display a
> > hyphen. Set the 8th bit on it and you get an 8859-1 hyphen.
> >
> > As a result, these-words-are-separated-by-minus-signs-not-hyphens.
> >
> > Although this ought to be obvious, many people use - as a hypen.
> > Is it worth a note in the spec.?
>
> If there's no reason against it, I think it's worth its own
> entity name. Embarrassingly enough, I was not aware that
> 8859-1 even *had* a hyphen character distinct from the
> minus, and would gladly use the hyphen if I knew.
>
> Perhaps it even makes sense to consider assuming that an
> ASCII minus sign "-" represents a hyphen, and using an
> entity reference for the minus. I haven't seen more than
> perhaps a handful of HTML-2 documents that use the minus
> sign as a minus. That seems likely to violate a lot of
> precepts about SGML or text formatting in general, however,
> so I won't push it.