This is probably something I could've done with a simple Google search, but... Google < Writing Forums So how should it be spelled? As two words... a long Or one word... along Whenever I write I always wonder this, and I'll find myself switching between the two every once in awhile. Does anyone knows if there's actually any difference between them? Just curious if I've been using it right or wrong.
From my (possibly feeble) understanding , along is either a preposition or an adverb. You can bring something along (modifying to bring, so adverb.) Or you can ride your bike along the sidewalk (preposition). If you separate the two words, it becomes an article, a, plus an adjective, long. "It was a long drive." I don't think they are interchangeable. My brain doesn't want to accept "it was along drive." And it also doesn't want to accept "I rode my bike a long the sidewalk."
Yeah, i dont think "along" splits like "awhile" does along adverb/prepositional object lines. Could be wrong, though...
"a long" and "along" are totally different. It's not that one is correct and one is wrong, any more than one or the other of "doughnut" and "dishtowel" are wrong. The coincidence of similar spelling is just a coincidence. I'm going to suggest a rather mechanical rule: If you imagine all the times that you could say "a short", those are the times that you could say "a long". If "a short" or "ashort" makes no sense, then you probably want "along". So: A long path. A short path. A long movie. A short movie. I'd go a long way to help Joe out. I'd only go a short way to help Joe out. All of these are fine. So you can use "a long" here. But Along the path. Ashort the path. Let's eat dinner along with watching the movie. Let's eat dinner ashort with watching the movie. I go along with Joe's opinion. I go ashort with Joe's opinion. The second second in each pair is not fine. So those sentences don't want "a long", they want "along".
I think I was more confused when the term was being used as a preposition, whether it should be with the space or not. However, thanks for the post.