Q. In a past Q&A there is a question about “a fund-raising event.” Does CMOS still treat “fund-raising” as a hyphenated word as in your answer? Is there a reason that you depart from M-W on this one?
A. Good question! Let’s investigate, starting with Merriam-Webster.
The first printing of the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (2003, p. 507) included entries for “fund-raiser” and “fund-raising”:
The free dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com (the larger, more frequently updated online counterpart to the 11th Collegiate, on which it was originally based) now lists “fundraiser or less commonly fund-raiser” and “fundraising or less commonly fund-raising.”
According to our database, the Q&A that you refer to was posted in May 2014. So either M-W hadn’t yet updated those entries, or if it had, we failed to check M-W.com for the latest lexicographical wisdom when editing that Q&A for publication. Our goal is to keep our free Q&A archive up to date, so (thanks to you and your question) we’ve changed “fund-raising” to “fundraising” in that particular Q&A.