In English, two words that belong together are not usually separated with a hyphen, they are separated with a space.
If the word really takes on a new meaning, it is often joined together as one word.
smartphone or smart phone
Origin of the confusion:
In German, it used to be easy. Two nouns that belonged together would be stuck together. Donaudampfschiff. Now things are changing, and people are starting to use hyphens instead of putting words together, to give Donau-Dampf-Schiff. People think this comes from English, but you don't do this in English! It would be a Danube steamboat (a Danube-steam boat would be a boat that uses steam from the Danube, and a Danube steam-boat is just wrong).
P.S. There are always exceptions
Examples:
a tablet computer
the hospital food
a mobile phone or a cell phone
the biogas process
the biogas process
If the word really takes on a new meaning, it is often joined together as one word.
Examples:
smartphone or smart phone
Origin of the confusion:
In German, it used to be easy. Two nouns that belonged together would be stuck together. Donaudampfschiff. Now things are changing, and people are starting to use hyphens instead of putting words together, to give Donau-Dampf-Schiff. People think this comes from English, but you don't do this in English! It would be a Danube steamboat (a Danube-steam boat would be a boat that uses steam from the Danube, and a Danube steam-boat is just wrong).
P.S. There are always exceptions
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