This week’s mistake is drawn from real life as usual. Sadly, it’s only one example of mistakes I see that show a lack of knowledge about words that function as both nouns and verbs and sound the same but are written differently. But more on that in a minute. First the mistake:

“We’ll walkthrough the facility to show you the areas and supplies to which you have access. Then we’ll walk-through the building to inspect it before your departure.”

I hope one mistake jumps out at you right away: the inconsistency. One sentence says “walkthrough” and the next says “walk-through.” It’s as if the writer didn’t know which was right so used both.

But both are wrong…at least in this example.

Why? Because as a verb, “walk through” is two separate words.

This is what I meant above when I referred to the common confusion about words that are the same but written differently depending on whether they are a noun or verb.

For example, consider the word “setup:”

  • Setup is the noun
  • Set up is the verb
  • Set-up (or setup) is the adjective

“We set up the room based on the recommendations of the set-up committee, using their planned setup.”

That means our Monday’s Mistake should say:

“We’ll walk through the facility to show you the areas and supplies to which you have access. Then we’ll walk through the building to inspect it before your departure.”

In both uses of “walk through,” it’s a verb so written as two separate words, no hyphen. Walkthrough as one word is a noun. Walk-through with a hyphen is an adjective.

To illustrate, here’s the “setup” example from above with “walkthrough” used instead:

“We walked through the room based on the recommendations of the walk-through committee, using their planned walkthrough.”

Get it?

  • Walkthrough is the noun
  • Walk through is the verb
  • Walk-through is the adjective

Let me know if that doesn’t make sense.

Sharon Ernst is a retired freelance copywriter now on a mission to improve the business and marketing writing skills of today’s workforce with her blog, newsletter and online classes.