The basic trend is for compound nouns to start off as separate words: life style - then get themselves a hyphen: life-style - and then end up as one word: lifestyle.
Where we are in this process might depend upon where you are, or how old you are, or to whom you are writing.
To make things worse, some words don't follow this pattern. I've seen quite a few hotdogs, and very many hot dogs, but never a hot-dog. Ice cream, on the other hand, persists in its two-word form.
But that isn't the only problem. How about a bowtie? You know, that thing men wear round their necks on formal occasions.
See what I mean? Some words really shouldn't follow the usual pattern.
The other day I came across the word unideological. Like bowtie, it tripped me up completely.
Uni- means single; deo- means to do with God; -logical means to do with reasoning. It's a perfectly good word - except that it didn't make sense in its context.
Unideological?
Ah! Not uni-deo-logical: un-ideo-logical.
Sometimes I wish people would forget the ideology, and concentrate on getting across their ideas.
Sunday Rest: unideological. The word ideological comes from the Greek forms ideo- to do with ideas, and -logical, to do with reasoning.
The word unideological comes from someone in too much of a hurry.
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