Note that that's "set up the tent" and not "setup the tent". I've got the style guides on my side with that one, but they'll eventually have to catch up with current usage. These days everyone seems to write "setup the tent".
Frankly this bugs me much more than it ought to. If you read the sentence above aloud and listen carefully, you'll notice that "set up" sounds different from "setup". In the first case they're pronounced as two separate words, with roughly equal emphasis on each and possibly a slight pause in between, while in the second case there's just one word and definitely no pause, emphasis on set. When I read "setup", my mind's ear hears one word with emphasis on set, and if I read it in a case where one would actually use equal emphasis, it jars.
But usage is usage, so what can you do?
When I studied German in high school, I was for some reason taken with the idea of separable prefix verbs, which are a lot like English phrasal verbs such as set up or tear down. These verbs can take two forms. In the infinitive (the form you'd use with will, can and such) or past participle (the form you'd use with have) or a couple of other cases they appear as one word, but in other forms the front of the verb breaks off and migrates toward the end of the sentence, with arbitrarily many words between it and the stem that's left behind. For example:
- Hast du das Zelt aufgestellt? (Have you set up the tent?)
- Ich will die Neubauten einstürzen. (I want to tear down the new buildings).
but
- Stellst du das Zelt auf? (Are you setting the tent up?)
- Ich stürze die Neubauten ein. (I tear the new buildings down).
At the time I thought it was cool that different that parts of verbs could get up and wander around like that, but that's actually old hat. In fact English allows even a bit more latitude than German, since the parts can appear together as well as with the second part at the end of the clause:
- I tear down the new buildings.
but not
- * Ich stürze ein die Neubauten.
What's new and different here is actually the infinitive (or past participle) form. While we maintain the order of the parts and give them equal emphasis, German switches the order and treats the result as one word with the emphasis on the first part (AUFstellen).
In fact, German does a bit more, smashing the particle ge (past participle marker) or zu (roughly equivalent to to with a verb in English) into the result, as with aufgestellt above or aufzustellen. It would be like saying "uptoset" instead of "to set up". Though this looks odd, it just means that the verb gets inflected before the prefix is stuck on, and in German some of the inflection happens through prefixes while in English we only use suffixes such as -s, -ed, or -ing.
Ok, what does this have to do with my grammatical peeve?
I'm grasping at the idea that phrasal verbs like set up and tear down, which act quite similarly to German separable prefix verbs, also have two forms, namely taken apart and smashed together, but it's harder to tell because the smashed-together form (note the hyphen there and the lack of one before) doesn't look as dramatically different from the taken-apart form as it does in German.
We use the smashed-together form in English mainly when making a noun from a phrasal verb:
- That's a nice setup. (something that's been set up)
- That house is a teardown. (something that should be torn down)
German has a similar form. For example, Aufstellung is a noun analogous to setup, except that it actually means list, because, well, languages are like that.
We also use a similar form when using a participle as an adjective (not sure what the technical term is for that):
- A set-up tent occupies much more space.
- The torn-down building had looked sad.
- The falling-down buildings looked even sadder.
In German such forms appear as one word
- einstürzende Neubauten (new buildings that are collapsing)
- drei eingestürzten Neubauten (three collapsed new buildings)
But hang on. What's that hyphen doing there in the English sentences? It's indicating that the parts are not completely run together, as they get roughly equal emphasis instead of emphasis on the first part, but neither are they completely separate. We can't put words between them. You could equally well say either of
- Did you set up the tent?
- Did you set the tent up?
but you wouldn't say
- * A set tent up occupies much more space.
- * A set nicely up tent is a joy to behold.
In short, the finicky rules about when to say "set up", "set-up" or "setup" at least have a somewhat coherent theory behind them:
- If you hear one word with the emphasis on the first part, write one word (A nice setup; The overhang of the ledge). Generally the phrasal verb will be acting as a noun.
- If you hear two equally emphasized parts but you couldn't put words between the parts, use a hyphen (A nicely set-up tent). Generally the phrasal verb will be acting as an adjective in participle form.
- If you hear two equally emphasized parts and the parts can just as well appear separately, use two words (I set up the tent; I set the tent up.) Generally the phrasal verb will be acting as an ordinary verb.
German uses the smashed-together form in the first two cases, and in the last case uses the taken-apart form, but with the first part of the smashed-together form always going to the end of the clause. Conversely, we can say that English has a similar construct to German separable prefix verbs (not a shock, given the close kinship of the languages), but with suffixes instead of prefixes. In both languages the affix is applied after the verb stem has been inflected, thus falling-down and not *fall-downing.
This leaves me no more enlightened than before as to why people would tend to write the smashed-together form in all cases, even when the pronunciation is different and the parts could just as well appear separately. My guess is that, because the smashed-together form sometimes appears even under the finicky rules, that's taken as "correct" and therefore used wherever the two parts appear next to each other.
I really don't know.
Still bugs me, though.
