Five Compound-Word Corrections

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1. “Eating McDonald’s food everyday for four weeks turned this filmmaker into a bloated, depressed wreck.”
Everyday is an adjective (“It’s not an everyday occurrence”). “Every day” is a phrase consisting of an adjective and a noun (“That’s not something you see every day”). In this sentence, the usage is adjective-plus-noun: “Eating McDonald’s food every day for four weeks turned this filmmaker into a bloated, depressed wreck.”

2. “Seen as both godsend and a major let down, it remains the city’s artistic center.”
“Let down,” consisting of a verb and an adverb, is employed in such sentences as “He was let down.” As a closed compound, it’s a noun: “That’s a real letdown.” In this sentence, it should be in noun form: “Seen as both godsend and a major letdown, it remains the city’s artistic center.”

3. “Resistance from the state legislature could doom the governor-elect’s promise to rollback the hike.”
A rollback is a thing (“The rollback proposal failed in committee”); to roll back is to perform an action (“The state will roll back the price hike”). This sentence refers to an action, not a thing, so the compound must be changed to a verb phrase: “Resistance from the state legislature could doom the governor-elect’s promise to roll back the hike.”

4. “California gave a record $100 million loan to bailout schools.”
As in the previous example, what is in context an action is styled as a noun. The sentence should read, “California gave a record $100 million loan to bail out schools.” Better yet, close the sentence with the preposition: “California gave a record $100 million loan to bail schools out.”

5. “International organizations continue their pull out as rebels attack a train.”
If the sentence read that the organizations continued to pull out, the two-word verb phrase would be correct. But pulling out is an action, so it’s a pullout: “International organizations continue their pullout as rebels attack a train.”

Compound Words in Technological Contexts

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“Cell phone,” or cellphone? “Home page,” or homepage? “Touch screen,” or touchscreen? Should such compounds be open, or closed? We see them both ways, so it’s difficult to know how to treat them — unless you use one simple test: Choose the form based on the context.

The natural progression for styling compound words is open to closed, often (but not always) with a hyphenated form as an interim phase. No ruling body authorizes the transformation, and no pattern or logic regarding the time frame applies from one compound to another. Some compounds stubbornly resist closing (“real estate”) or cling to their hyphens (mind-set), but closure is almost invariably inevitable.

Thus, for example, “sea water” at some arbitrary point transformed into seawater, with a transitional period in which both forms were commonly used, followed by preponderant use of the new form (though the old form nearly always persists to some extent).

Technological terms are a special case, for various reasons, including that they are coined by technologically minded people, who are not necessarily concerned about adherence to grammatical norms, and that, in the case of programming vocabulary, the practical issue of having a single string of characters to enter into a program is integral. Therefore, compounds referring to technological devices and procedures are likely to begin life as closed compounds or to be adopted in technological contexts in closed form.

And that’s the key to knowing how to treat them: In general-purpose publications, you’ll likely see “file name” and “screen saver” and “voice mail,” whereas in high-tech periodicals and on high-tech websites, you’ll probably find filename and screensaver and voicemail. (There are exceptions of course; note that on this site, I have reluctantly adopted website in place of “Web site,” and I have always preferred email to e-mail.) Consider your audience, and style technological terms as appropriate. And when in doubt, depending on the context in which you are writing or editing, consult mainstream or specialized publications for models.