J3Studio Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 (edited) I'm doing some writing and trying to make a stylistic choice. The question: air bag or airbag? Thanks for your responses—I could think of no better place to ask. Edited April 14, 2019 by j3studio (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 Google is your friend....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J3Studio Posted April 14, 2019 Author Share Posted April 14, 2019 Just now, keiser31 said: Google is your friend....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbag I saw that. On the other hand: https://www.nhtsa.gov/equipment/air-bags Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keiser31 Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 It's "airbag" on the dashboard of our Chevy Malibu. You decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunsmoke Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 The word Airbag goes back 200 years or more as a single word. Similar to terms like moneybag. But it may not appear in some dictionaries. The acceptance of such combined words sometimes takes years to appear in dictionaries. Out of curiousity I looked up duffle bag on Google and most sites consider it 2 words. I do find Google a very good source for solving these kinds of questions, and sometimes the answer is spell it either of 3 ways, air bag, air-bag, or airbag. Since it appears in dictionaries as Airbag with a definition as such, misuse by entities such as nhtsa may just be laziness. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_S_in_Penna Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 Be careful: Today's dictionaries reflect usage, not correctness. I consider either form to be acceptable. Often, as terms get more usage and familiarity, two words become hyphenated or compounded. You'll see "week-end" and "weekend" both used, for instance. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 Depends on which party the politicians your talking about belong to........👍 2 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFranklin Posted April 14, 2019 Share Posted April 14, 2019 Air-bag Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank DuVal Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 No dash (-) in any of the technical journals i have on airbags. There are a few references to air bags....😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maok Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 I'm no Shakespear, but I would have thought that two words that refer to a single item/entity ,etc would be combined as one word, ie , weekend, automobile, etc. Airbag is universally recognised to be a safety device in an automobile. IMO, it would be a single word. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zepher Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 (edited) Back in 1988 I worked for TRW/Technar and I was a tech on the part of the assembly line that made crash sensors for airbags. I worked in the Chrysler room but we had Honda at that facility as well. On my first day I sat through a big production about how important these devices were because they were life saving safety devices. Turns out that on the assembly line they were forcing me to pass parts that were nowhere near being within spec and all they really cared about were number of units off the end of the line. Later on, It was no surprise to hear that some Chrysler vehicles were having spontaneous airbag deployments or failure to deploy at all. Long story short, in the beginnings of the manufacturing process, they were called airbags. Edited April 15, 2019 by zepher (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John_S_in_Penna Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 By the way, there is never a dash (--) within a word. They're called hypens (-). The dash is an entirely different item of punctuation. I don't mean to be too nuanced, but as long as we're speaking of English... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike6024 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 The words air and bag are two nouns. When you put them together as "air bag" the first noun is a modifier to the second noun, giving you a bag that is meant to hold air; or worse you could possibly interpret that as a bag that is made out of air. If you want to describe this thing we know as the pillow created by explosive gasses; that would need it's own unique word, so "airbag" works well for that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 Read about a grade school girl named La-a. The teacher finally figured out that her name was pronounced Ladasha. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Harwood Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 I have a head ache. Or do I have a headache? Either way, I don't think it matters, but it seems that the automotive industry in particular has adopted the single-word usage: airbag. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Restorer32 Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 I suppose you could have an air bag that had nothing to do with the safety feature called an airbag. For instance a car with air shocks could have air bags as well as airbags. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edinmass Posted April 15, 2019 Share Posted April 15, 2019 Most importantly........it’s................ Pierce-Arrow. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zipdang Posted April 16, 2019 Share Posted April 16, 2019 I've known a few air bags. Or was that gas bags? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 2 hours ago, zipdang said: I've known a few air bags. Or was that gas bags? Most likely they were politicians.🤣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ch1929 Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 Just noticed this when I got into my 99 Chevrolet Pickup. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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