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Because the word housewife is hundreds of years old, and middle school isn't. Over time, compound nouns drift closer. They start out as two words, are then jo
by dublinben 11y ago
Because the word housewife is hundreds of years old, and middle school isn't. Over time, compound nouns drift closer. They start out as two words, are then joined by a hyphen, and then become a single concatenated word.
- kazinator 11y agoEtymonline corroborates you; it places the origin of "housewife" in the 13th century. (You would think there was basically no other kind of wife until well into the Industrial Revolution.)
- usrusr 11y agoWhich kind of makes sense, since a housewife would not turn into a trailer wife when moving into one.