Oft and 'oft-'

[Tamara]

Hi

An important, oft-neglected issue is… – my today’s reading 'exercise'.
Very intellectual text. :)

I’ve never met that oft!

oft - Often. Often (:)) used in combination: his oft-expressed philosophy; oft-repeated tales.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/oft
OK.

an oft told story/tale – with no hyphen - thank you, Mr. Google!
oft-quoted,
oft-recurring,
…

Could you say something about the way how to use that oft – only in the fixed (compound) words or it also can be normally used as a shorten form of often - separately?
Or it’s better just to keep it in the passive vocabulary? :)
_________________
It’s impossible to learn swimming without entering the water…

[Alan]

Hi Tamara,

Oft on its own is mainly found in poetry or poetic language as in my favourite Romantc poet, John Keats: