Spaces, hyphens...

[Laura2004]

Hello,
Would you tell me the rules for two words brought together... I can't tell why doorbell is only one word and bedside table that has 3 words is brought to two words...
What about fireplace, bathroom, living room... When should we use hyphens, spaces or just put them together? Even in the dictionairies I have consulted don't have the same way to write the words. In one living room has a hyphen (living-room) and in the other one this same word has a space between both words.
Help please!
Thanks a lot

[Alan]

This is a difficult subject to talk about briefly. I can only give some advice: limit the use of them. Either put the two words together or write them as separate words when you are talking about words that go together naturally. There are two practical uses: 1 to help with the pronunciation as in co-operate where the two letters 'o' without a division might confuse the reader. 2 with prefixes before a noun with a capital letter to preserve that noun as a separate entity as in the post-Bush administration.
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[Mister Micawber]

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There are no universal rules for hyphenation, Laura-- that is why you find words differently presented in different dictionaries. For instance, Webster's Collegiate does not hyphenate 'cooperate'. (Of course, this is a matter of a prefix, not of bringing words together.) Hyphenation is just marking the historical changes in orthography.

It is an evolutionary process which is particularly noticeable in the information technology field. Two separate words like web site increase in collocational frequency until they become linked by a hyphen (web-site) and go on (if the pronunciation remains reasonably clear to the reader) to a single-word form (website). All of these forms can be found at the same time in use, and while preferences among users change, none can flaunt 'correctness' over the others.

Dictionary.com has this interesting comment:

"web·site or Web site (n) -- Usage Note: The transition from 'World Wide Web site' to 'Web site' to 'website' seems to have progressed as rapidly as the technology itself. The development of 'website' as a single uncapitalized word mirrors the development of other technological expressions which have tended to evolve into unhyphenated forms as they become more familiar. Thus 'email' has recently been gaining ground over the forms 'E-mail' and 'e-mail', especially in texts that are more technologically oriented. Similarly, there has been an increasing preference for closed forms like 'homepage', 'online', and 'printout'."

The bottom line is that for formal writing, I suggest you consult any reputable dictionary or style manual, and go with their choice-- or check with your teacher or editor for their preference.
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Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's