On 2018-06-22 12:52, Robert Elz wrote:
Working out when an expression formed out of two words has turned into a new word is always something of a black art - yet it happens all the time.
Consider cutthroat or bullshit - clearly words these days, but not always. Or more relevantly perhaps, timecard, timepiece or timetable.
Whether timezone, timestamp, or filesystem have reached that state yet or not isn't clear - personally, I think they have (and without any wishy washy "a timezone is a technical thing in tzdb and time zone is an area with a common offset from UTC (for some period)".
It is also worth noting that the way the transition happens, is for people to simply start writing (and saying, though I think that's definitely already happened for the cases in question) the word pair as a single word and ignoring the "that's not correct" criticism.
Regardless of any trends in particular English dialects, international projects (and mailing lists) should try to stick to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_English in a more formal register and avoid cultural jargon from dialects, using two words where the term could be translated, and eliminating the separation where translation should not be applied.
In my early schooldays (another one) I was taught that the digit '0' was definitely not 'Oh' (that's a letter) and nor was it "zero" (that's American invented nonsense) but a "nought". I can't even imagine the last time I heard anyone use that though (decades ago). The language is continually changing, and we all need to keep up, and not persist in "I was taught..."
English sports broadcasts still use "nil" for scores, and I have heard the occasional anachronistic "nought"; the cricket term "duck" also seems old, and I cring at the American jargon neologism "bagel", which is not even in the article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_the_number_0_in_English -- Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada