Someone who makes policy is a policy maker. Look up the main word and see if the term or phrase is presented as a subentry.There are three main ways to find information about compound words in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate: Although publishers like the MLA have to decide whether they too will make such changes, you’ll just need to follow the dictionary. Until recently, Merriam-Webster’s showed “user name” (two words), which now appears as a single word: “username.” Frustrated yet? Don’t be. Moreover, sometimes the part of speech can differ depending on whether a word is closed up or not: under way is an adverb (“The test is now under way”), but underway is an adjective (“She had to interrupt the underway test”). Similarly, a fire wall is a wall designed to stop a fire from spreading, and a firewall is what keeps your computer from getting hacked. For example, time line means “a table listing important events for successive years within a particular historical period” and timeline (one word) means “a schedule of events and procedures.” So your history book might include a “time line” of events that took place during World War II, but when you visit a college admissions office, you might be given a “timeline” of activities for the day. Sometimes the same word will have a different meaning depending on whether it is one word or two. Dictionaries usually list the most commonly used compound words. Compound words might be “open” (that is, treated as more than one word: out loud), “closed” (treated as one word: outpost), or hyphenated ( out-box). Spelling checkers won’t help you when it comes to compound words, or words formed by more than one word or part of a word-an especially thorny issue for writers. Although it might seem confusing that there isn’t always a right and a wrong spelling choice, making an informed decision is simple: familiarize yourself with the kinds of words you should routinely look up, and know where to turn for guidance.īelow, we provide examples for using the online Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary in your writing. You don’t need to follow the same procedures a publisher like the MLA does, but you will want to spell a given word consistently throughout your paper and know when different spellings signal different meanings. ![]() For example, we use the word acknowledgment, not acknowledgement. This means that we follow the first-listed spelling when there are variants-that is, when a word can be spelled more than one way. MLA publications generally follow the spelling preferences listed in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, available online, and Merriam Webster’s Unabridged, available by subscription. (For example, they do not distinguish between homophones, or words that sound alike but have different meanings and sometimes different spellings, like there and their.) That’s one reason why it’s important to consult a dictionary as you write. But spelling checkers don’t always tell you when you’ve used the right word in the right form.
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