The WSJ is now spelling healthcare as one word

The Wall Street Journal is changing it style for healthcare to one word.

It’s style editors write:

The trend, as with many open compounds, is toward one word. So, we are now in the healthcare camp as of copy edited on Feb. 11. We are also going to one word on daycare. In both cases, some dictionaries have been shifting to the closed spelling, which also is more friendly for online searches.

This is no small matter within the healthcare/health-care world, where advocates of the two-word spelling strongly defend it. Many say there is a difference between providing health care (two words) and the healthcare industry (one word).

But compound words inevitably close up over time. Otherwise, we would still be watching base ball. Signficantly, our base dictionary, Webster’s New World College 5th, calls for one word on healthcare (meaning “the prevention and treatment of illness or injury”). It doesn’t on daycare, so the daycare ruling is now one of our stylebook’s exceptions to Webster’s. Meanwhile, for now, child care remains two words for us and Webster’s.

Our third change is going with one word on ebook, rather than a hyphenated compound, which will be another exception to Webster’s. Most “e-” constructions have retained the hyphen, except of course for email (which we once called electronic mail, and then e-mail), as well as esports, since that spelling is so common within that industry. But “e-book” is looking old-fashioned, which is the same reason that we switched to one word on bestseller, no hyphen, this time a year ago.

Read more here.