Consolidation

Consolidating compounds

There is, as Pam Peters and others have pointed out so often, a common tendency for two-word combinations (compounds) to consolidate themselves. Commonly, they begin as two separate (spaced) words; later, they are joined by a hyphen; in the final stage of evolution, they are “set solid” (printed as a single word with neither space nor hyphen). A simple example is a synonym for nobody: originally, it was no one, then no-one became common, and we now find noone appearing frequently.

This apparently unexceptional (and even unexceptionable) pattern appears in some odd places. Some examples, invented but based on reality:

Get off to a good start everyday.

The project has been underway for several months.

In both cases, the italicised word does not originate from a compound, but from an adverbial phrase. There is, of course, a “real” word everyday, but it’s an adjective—as in an everyday occurrence. I’m not aware of a “real” word underway, but to me it sounds a bit like an underpass or subway—both nouns. For me, the spaced forms every day and under way are not yet ready for the wastebasket (or should that be “waste-basket”?)

A broadly similar case is the solecistic alright. A variant of all right, it seems to be based on an analogy with altogether and always, but the analogy is shaky: altogether (entirely) does not mean the same as all together (in unison); nor does always (eternally or continually) mean the same as all ways (every direction or every method). I remain unconvinced that the language is in desperate need of alright.

Not that such changes can (or should) be stopped. After all, sometimes (an adverb, based on some times) would look odd with a space or a hyphen. The question for professional communicators is whether we should be at the leading edge of language change; to that, my answer is always “It depends on the audience”, but taking the more conservative option is almost (not all most!) certainly safer. Nobody will accuse you of error if you use every day as an adverb, but I won’t be the only person to complain if you drop the space.