Round trip
Round-trip
Roundtrip
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/round%20trip
While reading one of the stories here, I came across the "round-trip" version. According to the link, the "round trip" version is more common, but the other two variants are acceptable. That doesn't make any sense to me unless it's a American English verses British English point I was unaware of.
Opinions?
'round trip' used to be more popular and in British English it probably still is, although 'round-trip' is catching up fast.
In American English, 'round-trip' now holds sway.
In both British and American English, roundtrip is used but is a distant third.
AJ
Thanks for that. Growing up and into college years, it was "round trip." From your link, it looks like 1980 forward, it transferred sharply to "round-trip" in the states, but has stayed the course in Britain as "round trip" so far.
Round trip: noun; what happens when you enter a roundabout and stay in it without exiting while continuing to drive around the center island.
Round trip: noun; what happens when you enter a roundabout and stay in it without exiting while continuing to drive around the center island.
I thought it was when you do a full 360 before you hit the ground. ;)
On a road rally I was in a round about where I was supposed to take the 8th right turn. It took me a while to catch on. What a mess.
On a road rally I was in a round about where I was supposed to take the 8th right turn. It took me a while to catch on. What a mess.
I wonder how you would take a left turn. Unless you're in one of the few countries where they drive on the wrong side of the road of course, than a right turn would be awkward ;)
Two words commonly used together over time get hyphenated. Then they become so common that the hyphen is dropped. Examples are:
pick-up, pickup
make-up, makeup
If you want your story to not look archaic in fifty years time, use roundtrip.
Of course, by then we may be communicating by grunts and emojis ;)
AJ
Check the usage of round-trip. It is common to join the two words with a hyphen when they are being used as an adjective.
It was a round-trip journey.
I made a round trip to the store.
However, Switch Blayde is correct. Two words are frequently joined with a hyphen that is later dropped to form one word.
I gave examples of when a hyphenated (compound) noun turns into a word without the hyphen, but I didn't address all of your question — that is, "round trip" was two words. Here's a Grammar Girl blog that discusses that:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/how-to-use-a-hyphen
The wind in Reno is so loud that I'm using my noise canceling headphones to do the audio editing on my podcast today.
@GrammarGirl do you mean "noise-canceling"? ;-)
A hyphen would be OK there, because "noise" and "canceling" are acting as a compound modifier, modifying "headphones."
Notice how I said it would be OK, and I didn't use any strong words like "must hyphenate" or "should hyphenate"? Although there are a few hard-and-fast rules for using hyphens, there are just too many exceptions to call everything relating to hyphens a rule.