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How do you decide whether a compound should be written as one word, separate words, or hyphenated words?
Compounds
A compound is a word or word group that consists of two or more parts that work
together as a unit to express a specific concept. Compounds can be formed by
combining two or more words (as in double-check, cost-effective, farmhouse,
graphic equalizers, park bench, around-the-clock, or son of a gun),
by combining prefixes or suffixes with words (as in ex-president, shoeless,
presorted, or uninterruptedly), or by combining two or more word
elements (as in macrophage or photochromism). Compounds are written
in one of three ways: solid (as in cottonmouth), hyphenated (screenwriter-director),
or open (health care). Because of the variety of standard practice, the
choice among the styles for a given compound represents one of the most common
and vexing of all style issues writers encounter.
Compounds in the dictionary
A good dictionary will list many permanent compounds, compounds so commonly
used that they have become permanent parts of the language. However, a dictionary
generally will not list temporary compounds, those created to meet a
writer's need at a particular moment. Most compounds whose meanings are self-evident
from the meanings of the their component words also will not be listed in the
dictionary, even if they are permanent and widely used.
The compound-styling
conundrum
When compounds begin to be used widely, there may be significant variation in
how writers style them, and it can take years to achieve a high degree of consistency
in their format. For many terms, it is often completely acceptable to choose
freely among open, hyphenated, and closed alternatives, even though the term
has been used in English for an extended period (for instance, lifestyle,
life-style, or life style). Although the styling that ultimately
takes hold for a compound may be determined by nothing more than editorial preference,
there is one pattern that often holds true as new compounds become entrenched
in English. Compound nouns are usually written as one word, compound verbs are
generally written as two, and compound adjectives are very often written with
a hyphen.
Styling Internet- and computer-related terms (e.g., on-line, Web site, e-mail)
Internet-related compounds are still so new that their preferred styling remains
in flux, with the same compound styled different ways in different publications.
Over time, they will likely become more consistent, but what should writers
do now? The following list provides the Internet-term stylings that are currently
most widely used in professionally edited, published writing.
- E-mail (with a capital
E when used as a noun)
- e-mail (with a lowercase
e when used as a verb)
- online
- Web site
- Web page
- e-book
- e-tail
- webcam
- webcast/webcaster
- Webmaster
- dot-com
Text for this article was adapted from Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors.
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