Worst. Punctuation. Ever.

Watching a bit of the French Open yesterday. Apparently, there is this kid from Switzerland named Roger Federer, who is a pretty good tennis player. Kids these days, just coming out of nowhere. Who knew? Although it's very cute how he gives his opponent a little chocolate bar after each match, then blows him kisses.

Anyhow, I noticed that The Artist Formerly Known As Justine Henin-Hardenne was now being referred to as Justine Henin. A little searching revealed that earlier this year she announced that she was going to be seeking a divorce from her husband, Pierre-Yves Hardenne, and competing with her maiden name, Henin. Which is fine.

But this whole convention of hyphenating, I have to say, strikes me as possibly the worst single consequence of the overly politically correct reaction-against-the-patriarchy movement in the last 30 years.

For the record, I am completely in favor of husbands and wives taking on the same name when they get married. In my opinion, it is an important signal of their intention of being their own unit, independent and yet forever linked together. I agree wholeheartedly that the historical precedent that the wife takes the man's name, "just because that's always how it's been done," is unnecessary. And yes, it has historical referents to the fact that the wife was once considered the man's property, and that's why she took his name, which gives it extra negative logic.

But hyphenating names is just no solution at all. For one thing, you can end up with completely ridiculous concatenations that sound funny, don't fit on the signature line of a check, and reduce the productivity of the average American worker by 4 seconds per day for each time they have to say your full name. For another, what happens when your kid, John Singletary-Rosenfels, meets the love of his life, the amazing and wonderful Sally Reinhardt-Mcgonagal, on www.loveforpeoplewithtoomanylastnames.com? I swear to god, if they name their first child Amberleigh Singletary-Reinhardt-Rosenfels-Mcgonagal, they should be put to death, and the child sent to the salt mines.

So eventually, someone is going to have to make the decision to throw away one or more last names. Hyphenating is just a total copout failure to do so for yourself when you get married.

For the record, my opinion is that the happy couple should adopt whichever of their original last names sounds the most mellifluous with their respective first names. And if this means that certain truly horrible last names, like Kucinich (sorry, Dennis!), simply fade into oblivion after time, well, that's just another bonus of the system.

If they can't come to an agreement on which name sounds better, then make up a new one. I'm sure that my wife, the future Mrs. Superman, will agree: sometimes, just starting over is the right thing to do!