Basketmaker or Basket Maker?

Does anyone know? I’ve always wondered this. Well, not always. Only since I started this blog. And the reason why I have it as one word is because of how I designed my masthead… it looked better that way! Spoken like a true visual designer. Ha!

But really. How should it be written? Even my dear Mr. Basketmaker is a little unsure but he has a preference. And what I have gathered in my lengthy unscientific research into this matter is that when it is describing a group of people in terms of a prior culture, it is spelled Basket Maker. Similar to how we say those “French Canadians” are so awesome (yes, that’s me) or those “Native Americans” are so creative.

To further prove this point, according to Random House Dictionary, the definition of basket maker as two words is as follows:

Bas’ket Mak”er

1. an American Indian culture of the southwestern U.S. from 100 b.c. to a.d. 65 that developed in three phases, immediately preceded the Pueblo culture, and was noted for its basketry, agriculture, use of the bow and arrow, and, in its later stages, the building of semi-subterranean houses. 
2. an American Indian belonging to the Basket Maker culture.

However if you are describing a person or a group of people who practice the art of basket weaving and making, you will refer to them as a basketmaker. Same as you would call someone who works with wood a woodworker or a person who works in the craft industry as a craftsman or someone who constructs cabinets a cabinetmaker or an artist who fabricates books, a bookmaker—they are all one word.

And because my husband is not an American Indian belonging to the Basket Maker culture or lived from 100 b.c. to 65 a.d., I refer to him as a basketmaker in my writings. So there. I am unofficially announcing that the spelling of basketmaker and basketmaking is one word! Even if my spell-check always inserts a red dotted line under the word—they are incorrect!

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