Fun for Word Junkies to Consider
When I was a fledgling advertising dude — account manager and copywriter — I was faced with some editorial STYLE questions. Anybody who writes for publication is always faced with style questions. The first one to present itself was when I was responsible for 3M Company audio and video products.
We had always called our recording tapes "audio tapes" and "audio cassettes". But when we started talking about the video version of recording tapes, we had to decide whether to call them "video tapes" or "videotapes"…"video cassettes" or "videocassettes".
It didn't strike me at the time that we would be doing something for verbal posterity…combining an adjective and a noun into one cohesive, meaningful, understandable noun. Some entrepreneurs have even taken advantage and developed the fusion words into brand names for their companies and products.
We have so many examples today. Are they better as separate words, or combined into a single word…adjectives & nouns or just complex, descriptive nouns?
dining room or diningroom
health care or healthcare
poppy seeds or poppyseeds
sail boat or sailboat
word processor or wordprocessor
hot dog or hotdog
Aaron Rodgers or AaronRodgers
air force or airforce
window panes or windowpanes
sauce pan or saucepan
kitchen sink or kitchensink
bath room or bathroom
basket ball or basketball
desk top or desktop
Eli Manning or EliManning
book store or bookstore
thunder clouds or thunderclouds
General Electric or GeneralElectric
prime time or primetime
