I object to this proposal

[The American Hyphen Society <americanhyphensociety@xxxxxxxxx>]

Members of the ICANN board,

On behalf of the American Hyphen Society, I profoundly object to this proposal.

Established in 1862, the AHS is the second largest national
association dedicated to the dignity and preservation of hyphens, em
dashes, en dashes, underscores, half of the Morse Code, and other
laterally oriented grammatical operators. For almost a century and a
half, the AHS has campaigned tirelessly against the exploitation of
hyphens in the USA and globally.

I encourage the ICANN board to visit our web site, where you can view
YouTube videos of our recent charity fundraising event, at which we
auctioned items donated by Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen,
raising over $100,000 towards the napalm destruction of Winston-Salem,
NC.

We respectfully request that ICANN reject VeriSign Information
Service's barefaced attempt to irresponsibly introduce more hyphens
into the wild. Specifically, we appeal directly to chairman Peter
Dengate Thrush (you're clearly already sympathetic to our cause) to
stop this madness before it starts.

As a compromise, perhaps VeriSign could be encouraged to replace
hyphens with minus signs? As a mathematical operator, the AHS has no
objection to minus signs.

Sincerely,

Herbert Thomas-Potts

President

The American Hyphen Society