Hyphen separated words standard.
I know that we need to join two words when the resultant compound word to act as an adjective for the next coming noun. But some words like: ever-changing or everchanging, hand wash or handwash or handwash, decision maker or decision-maker etc. And the worst thing is even online available dictionaries are not consistent in this regard. My question is to take IELTS test what way should I adapt to know the right spelling or what rule should I follow.

Question

Answer

Hi! The reason you're finding so many variations is that different regions use different rules and sometimes the rules get ignored because the word had become so common. For your IELTS, any variations that are commonly used should be acceptable. It's more important to be consistent with how you spell a particular word.

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