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Recordkeeping, record keeping, or record-keeping

English Language & Usage Asked by vahokie02 on July 16, 2021

In the following sentence, a reviewer claimed that record keeping is a spelling error that should be corrected to recordkeeping.

Service providers shall manage information using agreed upon metadata tags that can be adapted to changing missions and record keeping practices.

My dictionary (and Dictionary.com) list recordkeeping as a noun only, so I am inclined to say that the spelling should be record-keeping since the term serves as an adjective (I would use record keeping for the verb form). I can find no “definitive” source to cite.

In a Google query, at least one Yahoo Answers article agrees with me, but I could probably find ones that do not. This article also claims that recordkeeping is a financial term not widely used in other contexts. A Google ngram search doesn’t resolve the issue, but record keeping is more popular.

What is the preferred spelling in the quoted sentence? Is recordkeeping a financial term? Does anyone have a source I can cite in my response to the commenter other than Yahoo Answers?

5 Answers

I think it's a mistake to characterize as "a spelling error" a decision that I may happen to disagree with about whether to hyphenate, leave open, or close up a term such as record keeping. The dispute is over the style of presentation of the term, not its spelling; and the preference of the author or publishing house is about as deep as you can fruitfully go in inquiring into its legitimacy.

Is E-mail misspelled? How about Email? Or e-mail? Or email? Or for that matter, E mail or e mail? The answers, I believe, are no, no, no, no, and no no. Some forms may be clearer than others in certain circumstances (as Edwin Ashworth points out in a comment above), some may be generally less common (and therefore less immediately recognizable to a reader), and one may have won the heart of its writer or editor—but nobody can seriously argue that any of these spellings is generally susceptible to being mistaken for any other term.

The same is true of record keeping, record-keeping, and recordkeeping in your sentence:

Service providers shall manage information using agreed upon metadata tags that can be adapted to changing missions and record keeping [or record-keeping or recordkeeping] practices.

Given the choice, I would probably use recordkeeping or record-keeping to avoid giving readers even the slightest pause to confirm that record isn't being used as an adjective in the sense of "all-time high" or "never-before-achieved," but I have no doubt that any competent reader of English prose will understand the intended meaning of the phrase "record keeping practices" regardless of how record and keeping are attached or separated.

Correct answer by Sven Yargs on July 16, 2021

According to the grammarbook site's page on hyphens (http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp), rule 1 states that you should hyphenate. That's my take anyway.

Answered by Greg on July 16, 2021

record keeping is the way it is usually said.

Answered by Connor DeMers on July 16, 2021

Upkeeping, goalkeeping, housekeeping, recordkeeping. Seems like the precedent has been set. I can't think of any type of "keeping" that is stand-alone, or has an adjective independent from the noun "keeping" that can't be combined to form one word.

Answered by Craig on July 16, 2021

As an FYI, neither recordkeeping nor record-keeping are in the Merriam-Webster or American Heritage dictionaries. Therefore, record keeping is probably the correct way to spell this word.

Answered by user335203 on July 16, 2021

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