First published by the Minneapolis Star Tribune: October 10, 1997

Spelling compounds with and without hyphens

by Stephen Wilbers

Nowhere (or should that be "no where"?) is English more chaotic than in its seemingly arbitrary spelling of compound words and phrases.

Take deadline, for example. Originally spelled dead line, then dead-line, now deadline, the term was first used during the Civil War in reference to a line drawn 10 feet within the walls of a Confederate stockade. As a security measure, the Union prisoners of war were told if they crossed the line they would be shot dead; thus, the name.

Unfortunately, solid compounds in general have not followed such a tidy evolutionary path. They are spelled variously as separate words, hyphenated compounds, and solid compounds – and many are still changing.

William Sabin sums it up neatly in The Gregg Reference Manual: "Compound nouns follow no regular pattern." Compare, for example, check mark, check-in, checklist; double take, double-dipper, doubleheader; and place mat, place-name, placeholder.

Your spelling-checker is of little help, so the safest way to deal with this mess is to consult a dictionary. I recommend you own not only a big hardback but also a smaller paperback. Recycle the paperback every five years to keep abreast of vanishing hyphens in words such as nontraditional and soon-to-vanish hyphens in terms such as e-mail, log-in, and on-line.

Leading the evolutionary trend to solid compounds are the people who use the terms most frequently. It was the bankers, for example, who first spelled bankcard as one word, and the scientists and environmentalists who first closed the gap in groundwater. A friend of mine grew up working in her family's restaurant. It wasn't until she went to college that she realized togo is still spelled as two words.

If you have noticed that our confusion often involves prepositions, you're on to (not onto) something. We use prepositions to inflect verbs: We hang up the phone and hang out with the crowd. And we press verb/preposition combinations into service as nouns: We suffer from hang-ups and hangovers with other hangers-on at our hangout.

According to Bill Bryson and others, we Americans first started getting carried away with prepositions in the 19th century ("our Elizabethan age"), when countless expressions such as to stay put and to get away with became popular.

Accustomed as we now are to seeing solid and hyphenated compounds, we must take care to spell verb phrases with spaces: We check out our items at the checkout, and we check in at the check-in. In short, we must be clear about how we are using words, and spell them accordingly.

Even then, however, we're not home free (or is that home-free?). Certain words, such as database, paperwork, and workforce, can be spelled either as solid compounds or as spaced words. Other words, such as frontrunner and fundraiser, can be spelled either as solid or hyphenated compounds. Decision-making and problem-solving are listed as hyphenated compounds by some dictionaries but as spaced words by Sabin. Vice president, once spelled with a hyphen, is now without. And, according to The American Heritage Dictionary, lifestyle can be spelled life style, life-style, or lifestyle – depending on what, I wonder, your mood?

I can't hope to make sense of all this, but it helps to think in terms of categories such as solid compounds: anytime, cannot, percent; hyphenated compounds: absent-minded, well-being, year-end; compounds that take hyphens when they precede the words they modify: "We work day to day and enjoy our day-to-day routine"; and indefinite pronouns that become two words when used to single out a member of a group: "Anyone can do it, including any one of you."

For a list of nearly 700 words organized by category, see "Spelling compound words with or without hyphens" on my Web page. You're welcome to print a copy for reference.