Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Mini-Grammar Corner

So I don't have time for a full-blown Grammar Corner (because I'm trying to put together a post about comic book super-apes), but I will have this mini-corner about fund-raise.

I've been irked when I'm reading the Statesman and see fundraiser as one word. So today I thought I'd do some research on it.

Now, according to Merriem-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition &mdash which is the dictionary of choice of the Chicago Manual of Style &mdash there's a hyphen in all it's forms (i.e., fund-raiser, fund-raising).

But American Heritage Dictionary of English Language, fourth edition, it's one word in all it's forms (i.e., fundraising, fundraise).

I don't have access to the OED (have you seen how much an online sub is?!?! crazyiness!), so I don't know what it says, and I don't have access to the latest version of the Associated Press Stylebook, so I don't know what that says, either, although the last version I have, which is 2003, I think, still hyphenates fund-raise in all it's forms.

I know the general evolution of the English language tends to go toward one-wordiness, but this is one word I can't see without a hyphen. What do you all think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have the 2005 edition of the AP stylebook in front of me, so I checked.

The entry is as follows:

fundraising, fundraiser
one word in all cases

If it was hyphenated before, I wonder why they changed it? Probably the one word thing you mentioned.