You're asking a linguist geek this question? You're likely to get more than you reckoned for!
Compound words are still single words, whether they're generally written with a hyphen or with a space in between. "Able-bodied" has a meaning all its own, and is not really a combination of "able" and "bodied"; "eye candy" is not a combination of "eye" and "candy" (which is sort of "ewwwww..." when you think about it!).
As for whether the term is written "anal-retentive" or "anal retentive", sources differ. Encarta appears to prefer the hyphenated form, while the current Wiktionary article reports only "anal retentive". Of course, we could change that on Wiktionary - and isn't that cool?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-07-05 07:19 am (UTC)Compound words are still single words, whether they're generally written with a hyphen or with a space in between. "Able-bodied" has a meaning all its own, and is not really a combination of "able" and "bodied"; "eye candy" is not a combination of "eye" and "candy" (which is sort of "ewwwww..." when you think about it!).
As for whether the term is written "anal-retentive" or "anal retentive", sources differ. Encarta appears to prefer the hyphenated form, while the current Wiktionary article reports only "anal retentive". Of course, we could change that on Wiktionary - and isn't that cool?