Re-Conciliation: The Hidden Hyphen

Reconciliation is an easy word to say, smooth and flowing, speaking itself almost as gracefully as a dance. Why, then, when we try to live out the word, do we often – perhaps usually – find it moving in quite a different way, more like a karate match than a dance?

The word is a much sharper one than it seems, for there is a hyphen hidden away in it. Re-conciliation. The "conciliation" part of the word is a cousin to the word "council" and carries the sense of "together." The "re-" part, how...