Thursday, March 29, 2012

hyphenation - "Well-being" or "wellbeing"?




I was writing a document in Microsoft Word and I used the word "well-being". Word told me to correct it to "wellbeing". When I do, Word tells me to correct it back to "well-being". Which is correct? I am stuck in an infinite loop of incorrect grammar.


Answer




Many word combinations go a progress from open (separate words) through hyphenated (one finds to-day in older texts) to closed (written as a single word, like nevertheless). Ngram shows the hyphenated spelling still five times as popular as the closed one among authors and editors of books as of 2008.


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