Fire-fighting

[chandelle]

For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks in advance for your inputs.

[bert]

On Wednesday, 25 May 2022 at 11:24:27 UTC+1, chandelle wrote:
> For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks in advance for your inputs.

I don't know what the grammar police would say about that!

But somehow I would read 'firefighting' as being the real thing,
and 'fire-fighting' as its metaphorical use for dealing with some
unexpected and serious situation. I will be interested to see
what other opinions are posted.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 4:24:27 AM UTC-6, chandelle wrote:
> For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks in advance for your inputs.

The spelling of that kind of compound is determined by usage--coal mining, but
firefighting, at least in the U.S. these days.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fire+fighting%2Cfire-fighting%2Cfirefighting&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=28&smoothing=3

Google ngram viewer doesn't have an Indian English corpus. In case you're interested,
here are GloWbE results from Indian Web pages:

firefighting: 35

fire-fighting: 31

fire fighting: 39

I didn't check for the syntax. Some would still write "equipment for fire fighting"
but "fire-fighting equipment".

--
Jerry Friedman

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 6:24:27 AM UTC-4, chandelle wrote:

> For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks in advance for your inputs.

Are you British?

British English uses hyphens more freely in compound words
than American English.

[chandelle]

On Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 7:10:21 PM UTC+4, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 6:24:27 AM UTC-4, chandelle wrote:
>
> > For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks in advance for your inputs.
> Are you British?

Nope, I'm Indian.

> British English uses hyphens more freely in compound words
> than American English.

Although the Brits wouldn't want to associate with the sort of English we speak and write, you could say that British English is what we're taught in schools.

[Peter T. Daniels]

That's why the hyphen comes naturally to you. And to Australians,
New Zealanders, and presumably South Africans.

When "AmE" is contrasted with "BrE," the latter usually encompasses
all the varieties that were planted later than in America and where
independence was achieved either never or much later.

The amount of intercommunication, as well as prestige, is crucial.

[Peter Moylan]

Words that are formed by combining two other words tend to go through
three phases.

1. fire fighting
2. fire-fighting
3. firefighting

Different English-speaking countries can be at different stages in this
progression.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Ken Blake]

On Thu, 26 May 2022 18:36:37 +1000, Peter Moylan
<pe...@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 25/05/22 20:24, chandelle wrote:
>
>> For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is
>> hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks
>> in advance for your inputs.
>
>Words that are formed by combining two other words tend to go through
>three phases.
>
>1. fire fighting
>2. fire-fighting
>3. firefighting

I didn't know that. That's infuckingcredible

[Jerry Friedman]

It's often said, and there are excellent examples such as "baseball",
but there are also quite different possibilities. The ngram for "fire(-)fighting"
didn't really fit. It certainly doesn't work for "ice cream".

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ice+cream%2Cice-cream%2Cicecream%2Ciced+cream&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cice%20cream%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cice%20-%20cream%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cicecream%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ciced%20cream%3B%2Cc0

shorturl.at/tBEIO

--
Jerry Friedman

[Bebercito]

Tmeses are a different kettle of fish.

[bruce bowser]

On Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 4:36:45 AM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 25/05/22 20:24, chandelle wrote:
>
> > For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is
> > hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks
> > in advance for your inputs.
> Words that are formed by combining two other words tend to go through
> three phases.
>
> 1. fire fighting
> 2. fire-fighting
> 3. firefighting

Though that's not a rule that instructors go by, I guess.

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 1:36:45 AM UTC-7, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 25/05/22 20:24, chandelle wrote:
>
> > For some reason, I'd always written 'firefighting' with a hyphen. Is
> > hyphenation of the word outright wrong or merely unnecessary? Thanks
> > in advance for your inputs.

> Words that are formed by combining two other words tend to go through
> three phases.
>
> 1. fire fighting
> 2. fire-fighting
> 3. firefighting
>
> Different English-speaking countries can be at different stages in this
> progression.
>

My experience with Canadian English is the same as yours in Oz. However,
a Canadian web site aimed at senior firefighting officials uses at least two of those
forms interchangeably, so I'd say we're still in transition from the second stage
to the third. Either that or the people who built that web site haven't twigged to
the evolution of terms.

https://www.firefightingincanada.com/

bill

[Snidely]

bruce bowser is guilty of
<9883e4c7-119f-458d...@googlegroups.com> as of
5/26/2022 1:23:19 PM

Depends on whether they are teaching a language class or a language
history class.

/dps "or the introduction to quartenions"

--
And the Raiders and the Broncos have life now in the West. I thought
they were both nearly dead if not quite really most sincerely dead. --
Mike Salfino, fivethirtyeight.com

[bil...@shaw.ca]

There are no rules for that sort of thing, and in the wild, you can encounter all
three of those formats. None of them are wrong, unless you are part of an
organization that has adopted a particular style. Some have their own
style guides, some follow another organization's style guide.

I said earlier that there might be an evolutionary process, with 1., 2., and 3 above
following each other as the word or expression develops. But I'm really not sure of that.

bill