Though there is little agreement on usage of backyard, back yard, and back-yard, the trajectory of the language favors backyard for all uses of the word. Right now, while some publications use backyard all the time, some use backyard as an adjective and back yard as a noun phrase, and others use back-yard as the adjective. There is no consistency within the main varieties of English, and some publications are inconsistent within their own pages. The Washington Post, for example, is all over the place:
From Pritchard’s back yard, the game slowly expanded … [Washington Post]
They . . . dropped by back-yard cookouts … [Washington Post]
The recent high-school graduate from Landover was lounging in his backyard last month … [Washington Post]
The Washington Post is an exception, though. Most major publications do not resist the compounding impulse. To name a few, the New York Times, Guardian, the Globe and Mail, and the Sydney Morning Herald always use backyard instead of back yard, even as a noun—for example:
He later told medical personnel that he had been conversing with a bear in his backyard and hearing voices. [New York Times]
It’s the backyard for thousands of people living in cramped estates. [Guardian]
But last spring we put sod down in our backyard and that’s when the real frustration began. [Globe and Mail]
Standing next to a backyard swing minutes later, the Prime Minister delivered her own appeal to swinging voters. [Sydney Morning Herald]
Our opinion: Backyard is already more common than the alternatives, and the compounding impulse in English is strong, so backyard will someday prevail. The less common front yard has not yet undergone compounding and is still two words, but this sort of inconsistency is just part of the language.
