Words like      wheelbarrow   and      nailbrush   are used mingled, the wheel goes with barrow in inseparable form.  On the other hand, words like      tank top   and     high heels   as it sounds written separable.   On what reasons they're written like this? Is there a clear way to distinguish the correct form and making them in writing?
123857
Are there any rules when to write a set of two (or more) words or abbreviations forming a name of some entity as separate, when to hyphenate, and when to stick them together?  These are my findings with ngram:        bitwise, bit-wise, but never bit wise   sci-fi, but never sci fi, or scifi   wastelands (increasingly frequent), waste lands (dying out), never waste-lands   fanfiction or fan fiction, but almost never fan-fiction, but   fanfic, never fan fic or fan-fic   read-only or read only, rarely readonly   twofold (frequently), two-fold (rarely), two fold (minimal)   bittersweet (rise), bitter-sweet (decline), bitter sweet (minimal), but...   sour-sweet (frequent), sour sweet (less frequent), soursweet (even less frequent)   all-nighter (dominant), allnighter (infrequent), all nighter (somewhat less frequent)   cross-country (gaining), crosscountry and cross country (about equal, not infrequent)   overnight (rise), over night (same as overnight until 1920, then drops to 0), very rare over-night.      In particular, if I'm coining a new blend, which rules should I follow when deciding which of these three forms to give it?
8726
I normally write using the American English forms, but for some particular words, I tend to naturally write it in the British manner (like with the word favourite rather than favorite).  Is it wrong to mix both styles? If not *wrong*, does it looks weird?
108234
I have seen some writing where people have a list or a figure in writing and they will write something like this:     The information is provided in Image   3:-   Is that correct? Is this a British style?
38433
Examples:   Anyone Anything Anytime Anywhere Everyone Everything  Every time Everywhere No one Nothing No time Nowhere Someone Something Sometime Somewhere   Why is there a discrepancy? Is there any rule for determining when to use a single word vs. two words?
67831
Can you grab the blue shirts and socks?   Is the above sentence stating that both the shirts and the socks are blue? Or only the shirts?  At this stage, I am leaning towards the earlier (only the shirts) — though writing "Can you grab the blue shirts and blue socks?" seems redundant.
87932
I was going through the topic "formation of comparative and superlative".       The rule says     When two objects are compared with each other, the latter term of comparison must exclude the former, as in "Iron is more useful than any other metal". If we say "Iron is more useful than any metal", that is the same thing as saying    "Iron is more useful than iron", since iron is itself a metal.   I am finding difficulty to relate the rule with example.
47736
This is similar to , but not quite the same.  There are quite a few words which have totally different meanings in American and British English and which are likely to cause confusion when heard by non-local speakers.  What are they?  We are looking for the same word with different meanings (for example jumper), and not words which are different between the two dialects (for example truck and lorry).
37375
I have the sentence:     Who wrote the very first dictionary ever?   Is it any different from     Who wrote the first dictionary ever?   I don't get how something could be more first.
34493
"Put" and "but" both end in the same letters, so why don't they rhyme? Did they start out with the same sound, and then one of them changed? Or did they start out with different sounds, and just got spelled with the same letter because there weren't enough vowel letters to represent all of the vowel sounds in English?
117114
I have always run into word twins like tube vs. tubing.   More pairs: fence vs. fencing, pipe vs. piping, cable vs. cabling, rail vs. railing, etc.  This is an interesting phemonenon. Most of these nouns cannot function as verbs, but adding the ing-form generates a new word with a similar meaning.   Can you please explain the morphology behind this? Does the ing-form bring with it a different connotation? Any nuances between these twins?
37880
I have seen them both in my reference book, which is written by a native speaker. I wonder why there are two different phrases to describe the same meaning and am looking forward to some reasonable details to explain why this is so.
90370
What is wrong with this command? It says it has a problem with value separators, but i can't find it  /summon ArmorStand ~ ~ ~10 {ShowArms:1,NoBasePlate:1,Pose:{LeftArm:[0f,0f0f],RightArm:[0f,0f,0f],Body:[0f,0f,0f],LeftLeg:[0f,0f,0f],RightLeg:[0f,0f,0f],Head:[0f,0f,0f]},ArmorItems:{id:diamond_boots,ench:[{id:protection,lvl:1000},{id:blast_protection,lvl:1000},{id:thorns,lvl:1000},{id:unbreaking,lvl:1000}]},{id:diamond_leggings,ench:[{id:protection,lvl:1000},{id:blast_protection,lvl:1000}, {id:thorns,lvl:1000},{id:unbreaking,lvl:1000}]}, {id:diamond_chestplate,ench:[{id:protection,lvl:1000},{id:blast_protection,lvl:1000},{id:thorns,lvl:1000},{id:unbreaking,lvl:1000}]},{id:diamond_helmet,ench:[{id:protection,lvl:1000},{id:blast_protection,lvl:1000},{id:thorns,lvl:1000},{id:unbreaking,lvl:1000}]}}
83426
I am working on my accent and pronunciation. I use  and it says that in spoken English, speakers usually run words together.  For example, "Run them all together" turns into "Runnemalld'gether." I have two questions here.   Is there any rule when we can reduce th sound?  Is it acceptable in business meeting and academic speaking to reduce th and running word together?
39992
I've always been fascinated by these two words, as they seem to have the exact opposite meaning as expected. Is it because of the etymology? Or perhaps the meanings were switched at some point in time?
87733
I recently read the following in a schoolbook:     Wrote the researchers, "[...]"   I wonder if this is correct English. I have seen it a couple of more times. Is this just a matter of preference? English doesn't really have a very liberal word order, unless you're writing poetry or the like.  Can anyone tell me what this is called? I found some information on subject-verb inversion, but it only seems to be when the object is in front, but in this case, the word order is verb-subject-object.
87589
I've seen a contraction of two words.  I can't see why it wouldn't've been possible to have been contracted twice.  Is it possible and how should it be punctuated?  Update:  Ok, to sum up the answers so far   This appears in spoken British and American English It is from one of the lower  Even if spoken this way sometimes, it isn't really written as a double contraction, except as written speech in fiction. And from my own googling in , it appears most written forms are old British words, often nautical like fo'c'sle.
82450
Which of these are acceptable? Is one preferable over the other?   "Chemically-deposited tourmaline is never periwinkle." "Chemically deposited tourmaline is never periwinkle."   Also, is the title to the this question asking what I'm trying to ask?  (I realize that there are other questions about hyphenation in similar contexts; I'm asking specifically about -ly adverbs.)