Essay About Compound Words

Orthographically, compounds can be divided into 3 types, which are closed (solid) compound, open compound and hyphenated compound. Closed compound words are formed when two unique words are joined together to form one solid word. They do not have a space between them and they are the type that generally comes to mind when we think of compound words. For example, elsewhere, crosswalk, anybody and inside. Open compound words have a space between the words but their combination of words are very closely associated that they convey a single concept or seen as a single unit, although they are spelled as unconnected words. For example, ice cream. Water that has frozen and become solid is called ice, whereas cream means the thick pale yellowish-white fatty liquid that rises to the top of milk, used in cooking or as a type of sauce to put on fruit. As for ice cream, this compound means a type of sweet frozen

The hyphen is used as a mark of punctuation that not only unites but separates the component words. Thus, it aids understanding and readability and ensures correct pronunciation. Words are hyphenated mainly to express the idea of a unit to avoid ambiguity. “Large-print paper”, for example, might be unclear written as "large print paper" because the reader might combine "print" and "paper" as a single idea rather than combining "large" and "print." Another such example is "English-language learners." Without the hyphen, a reader might think we are talking about English people who are learning any language rather than people who are learners of the English language. It is hard to predict when the word is used in hyphenated or when it is not, because we cannot locate a specific rule or example for their use. In such cases, the question of hyphenation necessarily must be left to the discretion of the editor and the author or we can said that hyphens leave some room for a writer 's own