B Y  C R A I G  B A T T R I C K
Mid-Valley Chapter
 

Sometimes I worry that written English is on the verge of becoming Chinese. Chinese is written with no spaces between the words. I see this trend in the following sentence.

"When you’re online, you can be anybody!"

If you’ve been confused by different forms of "on line," don’t worry. Even the Reader’s Digest got it wrong in the November 1999 issue. They had a headline on the front cover that read, "Surprising Things You Can Do On-Line."

Why is that wrong? Let’s consider "on line," "on-line," and "online." The first is a prepositional phrase. The second is a compound adjective. The third is a simple adjective derived from the second, compound form. The Reader’s Digest cover designers used a compound adjective where they should have used a prepositional phrase.

When we confuse prepositional phrases with compound adjectives or adjectives derived from compounds, we send mixed messages. Our readers can then get confused.

To avoid confusion, both for readers and within our own minds, let’s take a look at the different messages these grammatical structures send to get a grip on our confusion.

I imagine the etymology of "online" went something like this. When telephones were on party lines, people picked up the phone and asked, "Is anyone on the line?" Being "on the line" became synonymous with being engaged in a telephone call. I remember doing this. I also remember Glen Campbell’s country-western hit, "Wichita Lineman." This poor guy was forever cruising county roads looking for downed telephone lines while presumably, his sweetie was at home waiting for him. As he mournfully croons in the chorus, he is always "on the line."

Anyway, party lines were still common in rural and small town America until well into the 1960s. At the end of the 1960s, programmers started using keyboards instead of punch cards to enter data. In this transition, they dropped the article "the" in the phrase "on the line" and were soon saying they were "on line" when entering data or coding main frames. There is nothing wrong with that prepositional phrase. It’s a good example of the fluid nature of English.

However, a prepositional phrase used as a compound adjective is hyphenated. The hyphen lets us know the link-up of the two words is somewhat out of the ordinary. Thus, "on line" to mean "on the computer" would become "on-line" to modify "documentation" in this sentence: "I write on-line documentation."

According to the Chicago Manual of Style, the hyphenated prepositional phrase used as an adjective looses its hyphen as it becomes more common (sections 6.34-6.37, 14^th edition). This process used to take decades, but in the tele-computer age, the hyphen seems to disappear more quickly. Thus, "on-line documentation" quickly became "online documentation." In this usage, "online" becomes a simple rather than compound adjective.

"So what?" you might ask.

Suppose you wanted to transcribe a conversation in which someone asked you what medium you wrote in. "I write onpaper and online" just doesn’t work, does it? But many writers no longer distinguish between "on line" as a prepositional phrase and "online" as a compound adjective. I believe the loss of clarity causes confusion.

Here’s a suggestion. When you are writing on line, on paper, or on any other medium, use spacing and hyphens to tell readers you are using a newly minted modifier or that you are "pre-positioning" a noun.

Here is a short table of preposition + noun/verb and noun/verb + preposition constructions with their matching compound modifiers. The examples are somewhat contrived to stress the difference in messages.

Note that once a compound has become accepted in the language, it can become a noun as well as an adjective. The word "pickup" is a good example. First, we had "pick-up trucks," then "pick-ups," then "pickups."

These examples clearly show that being conscious of correct grammatical structure will contribute to making our messages clear and unmistakable. When we write clearly, our readers appreciate it. And if our readers speak English as a second language, they will be doubly grateful. While native speakers can get around the confusion of "on line" and "online," that very fluidity makes English one of the hardest languages in the world to learn. Maybe even harder than Chinese?

You can reach Craig Battrick at craig_battrick@hp.com.