LES

Three general principles are laid down by Mr. F. Horace Teall which will
be found useful, though they must be supplemented in practice by more
specific rules which will be given later. They are as follows:

I All words should be separate when used in regular grammatical
relations and construction unless they are jointly applied in some
arbitrary way.

An _iron fence_ means a fence made of iron. The meaning and
construction are normal and the words are not compounded.

An _iron-saw_ means a saw for cutting iron. The meaning is not the
same as _iron saw_ which would mean a saw made of iron. The
hyphenated compound indicates the special meaning of the words used
in this combination.

_Ironwood_ is a specific name applied to a certain kind of very
hard wood. Hence, it becomes a single word compounded but without a
hyphen. Either of the other forms would be ambiguous or impossible
in meaning.

II Abnormal associations of words generally indicate unification in
sense and hence compounding in form.

A _sleeping man_ is a phrase in which the words are associated
normally. The man sleeps.

A _sleeping-car_ is a phrase in which the words are associated
abnormally. The car does not sleep. It is a specially constructed
car in which the passengers may sleep comfortably.

A _king fisher_ might be a very skilful fisherman. A _kingfisher_
is a kind of bird. Here again we have an abnormal association of
words and as the compound word is the name of a specific sort of
bird there is no hyphen. A _king-fisher_, if it meant anything,
would probably mean one who fished for kings, as a _pearl-diver_ is
one who dives for pearls.

III Conversely, no expression in the language should ever be changed
from two or more words into one (either hyphenated or solid) without
change of sense.

_Saw trimmer_ is not compounded because there is no change in the
commonly accepted sense of either word.

_Color work_ is not compounded because the word _color_, by usage
common in English, has the force of an adjective, and the words are
used in their accepted sense. In other languages it would be
differently expressed, for example, in French it would be _oeuvre_,
or _imprimerie en couleur_, _work_, or, _printing in color_.

_Presswork_ is compounded because it has a special and specific
mea