ABSTRACT
A word that is formed from two words is a compound. Some compounds are written as one word, some are hyphenated and some are written as separate words. The existence of open compounds raises the question of what differentiates a compound from a collocation, a phrase or a sequence of separate words. Spelling conventions are not a guide. Compounds existed in English before the language was written and all languages have compounds including those they have no written form. Compounding has always been one of the most productive word-formation processes throughout the history of English. An interesting feature of compounding is the emerging of certain words as regular bases. Blending began to be used more around the turn of the twentieth century when brunch and smog appeared, followed not long after by motorcade in 1910, surprisingly early considering motor cars were in their infancy. Forms of English spoken by second-language speakers are often represented by blends.
