No less a grammar curmudgeon than H. W. Fowler saw nothing wrong with spelling the adverbial expression “some time” as one word, or connecting the words with a hyphen: sometime, some-time.
HOWEVER, Fowler pointed out that convenience favors spelling the adverbial expression as two words in order to keep a distinction between
some time in the sense of “at some time or another,” as in Let’s have lunch together some time,
and
sometime, meaning “formerly” or “former” as in Mr Jones, sometime Mayor of Cleveland, spoke to journalists.
The distinction continues to be a useful one.
2 Responses
Corybelle,
I don’t know what the Greek equivalent of “some time” or “sometime” would have been for Paul. In the English translation of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, neither “some time” nor “sometime” appears.
🙂
Which do you think Spaul of Tarsus would have used when writing his letters to the Ephesians?