Compounds Words

The compound word is thus two words joined to make a new, and usually more specific word applicable to the circumstances. For instance the word news can mean many things. When combined with the word paper, which could also refer to several different types of papers, the compound word, newspaper, is well understood, and more specific. Nevertheless, you’ll often see people refer to a newspaper as “the paper,” though technically the former word is more accurate and more descriptive.
When you join two words together to form a compound word, changes tend not to occur in spelling of the words. Instead, the major change is simply deletion of spaces between the words. It’s in essence a marriage of words, where two words become one. There are some exceptions to this rule of marriage. Just as many women now use a hyphenated last name when they get married to keep their pre-marriage last name, some compound words may be hyphenated instead of being directly together. Compound words not joined by a hyphen are called solid compounds, while words joined by a hyphen are hyphenated compounds.