Linguistic first aid

Add comment March 9th, 2009

I haven’t blogged for a while. I hope I remember how to do this.

Use the one-word “rundown” as a noun for “a concise summary or outline” or, in baseball, for chases between bases: “He overran second base and got caught in a rundown.”

The adjective for “not wound and therefore not operating, as a spring-operated clock”; “in poor physical condition, as from overwork, debilitated”; and “fallen into disrepair, dilapidated” is “run-down,” hyphenated.

Try to remember it this way: Since “run-down” refers to something that isn’t in top condition, look at the word as being broken and the hyphen as a bandage.