Is it shapeshifter or shape shifter? I think it would be shapeshifter it seems to be what i am going for as it is for a made up species in my world that obviously shapeshifts.
Is it shapeshifter or shape shifter? I think it would be shapeshifter it seems to be what i am going for as it is for a made up species in my world that obviously shapeshifts.
You should've put this on "Writing Question" section...
Anyhow. I think the correct spelling is shapeshifter. The spell check in Microsoft Word don't recognize it, so I usually compensate by writing it as 'shape-shifter'.
I agree with Wordwalker (and not just because I always use the one-word spelling when I'm proofreading ). The hyphenated version could work, and for words that could be misread if the letters run togther, hyphenated is better. (I once saw a misplaced hyphen in a Charles Stross novel that had the MC talking about his "cow-orkers." Okay, probably misplaced.)
Generally, if the two parts of a compound word act together as a single entity, they look better written as a single entity. (Sorry, I don't have the jargon to explain better.) Thus (to take an example from the last thread I posted wildly on today), it's a full-length novel, not a full length novel. ("full-lenth" acting as a single adjective in this usage)
By the way, the massive tome of a print dictionary (Webster's Universal Encyclopedic Dictionary, 2002 edition) that I keep next to my desk has it hyphenated: shape-shifter.
Excellent point, but only for use part of the time; it comes across as a sort of nickname for the full term. (Unless it's a world that takes it for granted so much nobody bothers with the full one.)