Hi, all lactnetters! I forwarded a recent post about "breast-feeding" vs "breast feeding" vs "breastfeeding" & the Library of Congress to a librarian friend of mine, and I thought that you all might be interested in her reply: ************************************************* Lisa Marasco, BA, LLLL, IBCLC [log in to unmask] / [log in to unmask] ************************************************* ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Subject: Re: word usage (fwd) It is true!! Dictionaries merely make official what has already been happening in the living language for awhile. I personally use the current spelling in journals of my field--e.g. CD-ROM, online, etc. If I try to use a general English dictionary as the arbiter, I am often disappointed. The Library of Congress (LC) Subject Headings are even more conservative (by far) than regular dictionaries. It's only been maybe in the last 10 or 15 years that they finally changed "aeroplanes" to "airplanes". They are much better at changing nomenclature than they used to be, but still quite conservative. When the LC sneezes, all the other libraries using their subject headings have to blow their collective noses. So the LC doesn't want to change spellings too quickly. You'll probably have to put up with breast-feeding for a few more years. (It's very important to know what the correct LC term is for stuff, because it is a standard used by most American libraries and many foreign ones.)