Like food, fashion, and fitness, language changes. To acknowledge change is not to discount grammar rules. Grammatical errors muddy your message and mar your image. But as long as the language is still spoken, new words move into our language to convey new concepts. Worn-out words fall into disfavor and become archaic.
 
Some changes, however, create confusion for writers. For example, they see a word hyphenated at an organization. Then they move to another company, and people there write the same concept as two words. More perplexing still, their client writes the same idea as a single word.
 
What's going on here? Words enter our language as separate entities: pipe and line. Then they are gradually hyphenated: pipe-line. When they are commonly put together, the hyphen disappears: pipeline.
 
Other examples: Make up, make-up, makeup. Note book, note-book, notebook. Feed back, feed-back, feedback. On line, on-line, online.
 
What's a person to do? Stay up to date. Use current references and style guides. When grammar and common usage clash, common usage always wins over the course of time.
 
 
© Dianna Booher, Booher Consultants, Inc.
Author of 42 books (Simon & Schuster/Pocket, Warner, and McGraw-Hill), Dianna Booher, CSP, CPAE, delivers programs on communication and life-balance issues. Her latest books: Speak with Confidence, Your Signature Life, Your Signature Work, E-Writing, and Communicate with Confidence. For more information, visit www.booher.com or call 800-342-6621.