Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 32

Des Pond of Slough has sent this example of over-enthusiastic, or possibly old-fashioned, punctuation, seen in the final paragraph here and echoed in the caption:

Link: BBC News, 'non-descript'

It's quite hard to resist the temptation to wonder why a Chinese military group is congregating on the doorstep of the building (it conjures up a wonderful image), and to consider how this might compromise the secrecy of its secretive exploits; but the issue here is non-descript, another of those peculiarities that a spellchecker is unlikely to identify. For instance, neither Word nor WordPerfect flagged it as problematic, though Blogger highlighted descript as an error.*

Nondescript is treated as a single, unhyphenated word in Merriam-Webster (MW) and in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), whose most recent example with a hyphen is from 1823. 

The 'non-descript building' and its doorstep appeared early on 19 February, but didn't make it though to later updates of the report.

Descript
Descript seems not to have been very popular; MW briefly defines the word and calls it 'archaic', while OED lists its last usage as 1863.

However, it does turn up in the lyrics of 'The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows' (2004) by New York rock band Brand New:

Reports of lover's tryst.
Were neither clear nor descript.

It also appears in a themed poem attributed to one J. H. Parker (here reproduced from the 'Schott's Vocab' section of The New York Times), which might appeal to manglers:

A Very Descript Man

I am such a dolent man,
I eptly work each day;
My acts are all becilic,
I've just ane things to say.

My nerves are strung, my hair is kempt,
I'm gusting and I'm span:
I look with dain on everyone
And am a pudent man.

I travel cognito and make
A delible impression:
I overcome a slight chalance,
With gruntled self-possession.

My dignation would be great
If I should digent be:
I trust my vagance will bring
An astrous life for me.

* It also highlighted Blogger…