In English, words can be combined into compound structures that create new meaning. Once they are formed, such as in the case of hyphenated compounds, they can metamorphose over time, eventually becoming just a single word with nary a punctuation between the root nouns and adjectives.

Words are combined together in order to provide a new meaning which describe what you really refer in your sentence well.

Most of the time, compound words eliminate spaces and serve as a one word with a single thought. They may came from two different words with different and various meanings but when grouped together, they stand only to a single meaning.

Compound words are very useful in writing. These words serve as to describe ideas more clearly and to be specific enough you are referring to when you start writing your contents.

Not all are skilled enough to use compound words properly. It needs some basic rules on how to use compound words and how to identify them easily without causing any confusion.

However, there are instances where your readers really don’t understand what you have written and the compound words that you are using are not clearly stated in your content.

You should avoid situations like that to make your writing understandable. Since nouns and adjectives are commonly combined together to form a compound word, most of them are hyphenated in order to determine them easily.

These words can have a role like metamorphosing in your content. However, they may appear as a subject, an adjective or an object in your sentence.

In terms of spelling them correctly, most people might be confused on what to do. A single letter or wrong use of hyphen matters. As a result, you might end up spelling it incorrectly and its meaning may alter in your sentence.

So what to do to us them correctly?

There are three forms of compound words in the English language:

– Closed form refers to compounds where the root words meld together, as in bulletproof, fireman or laptop.

– Hyphenated form refers to compounds that require a hyphen in between the words, as in father-in-law, dine-in or six-pack.

– Open form refers to compounds where a space is explicitly written between the words, as in real estate, Big Brother or personal computer.

When an open compound is used to modify meaning in a phrase, make sure to double check its meaning. Watch out for instances when readers might misconstrue which is the compounded construction. An “old spaghetti recipe,” for instance, may be a classic way to cook spaghetti or a recipe for a less-than-fresh batch of spaghetti. Do you catch my drift?

Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives used in a modifying compound require being hyphenated, as with “biggest-headed man” and “lowest-priced homes.” When a modifying compound precedes a noun, they should be hyphenated too, as with “high-ranking officials” and “home-bound worker.”

Got doubts about your use of compound words? Run your piece through a grammar checking software and find out if you managed to employ them correctly.

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Category: Writing
Keywords: compound constructions, compound words