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What is the grammatically correct way to say the following sentence?

"I have come away with a new found respect for the author..."

or

"I have come away with a newly found respect for the author..."

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I'd suggest new found rather than newly found, if for no better reason than that bit of land on the right-hand edge of Canada is Newfoundland not Newlyfoundland. – Brian Hooper Dec 9 '11 at 16:56

5 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Both are grammatical. That which is newly found, has been found recently for the first time. That which is new found has been found again with renewed delight and interest.

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An amazing amount of excellent, well-explained answers here, but yours is the one that spoke directly to me and succinctly showed me the true answer: that both were grammatically correct, but one applied more specifically to my context than the other. – Shawn Holmes Dec 10 '11 at 20:41
@ShawnHolmes: Kind of you to say so. – Barrie England Dec 10 '11 at 21:17
This is interesting and there is something to it, but dictionary definitions for newfound do not support it; mostly the define newfound as recently discovered, gained or simply as newly found. If you could provide some references I would upvote. – Unreason Dec 12 '11 at 12:54
@Unreason: Under ‘new-found’, the OED gives only ‘newly or recently found, discovered, or invented’ and ‘designating newly discovered land, islands, etc.’ However, definition 5 for the adverb ‘new’ has ‘with past participles used predicatively, or in a postmodifying non-finite clause, in the sense “anew, again, afresh”'. ‘New found’ in the OP’s example is not used predicatively, yet the sense still seems to be of a RENEWED respect, rather than one that has only recently been given. – Barrie England Dec 12 '11 at 13:50
up vote 2 down vote

"New found" is an idiom, which is used only in precisely this form. It means "new", but with a connotation of surprise, or of a significant change of view.

I would find "newly found" strange (except in the literal sense of something that has just been discovered).

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This was my first thought, but the second sentence seems OK if the article is dropped: "I have come away with newly found respect for the author..." – KitFox♦ Dec 9 '11 at 16:24
@Kith: I don't think the article really affects anything. Newly is a bit less common than new, but I can't see any marked tendency here for it to be more likely to be preceded by "a". – FumbleFingers Dec 9 '11 at 19:05
up vote 6 down vote

It's "newfound" - one word. I believe this is the correct term in this case, as "newfound" is an adjective and "newly" is an adverb. Perhaps others know better, though. SE is flagging "newfound" as misspelled, so let's see what others have to say. FWIW, dictionary.com does list "newfound" as "newly found or discovered: newfound friends." :)

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ngrams shows the one-word form "newfound" dominating "new found" and "newly found" since about 1970, at which point its usage increases sharply. – jwpat7 Dec 9 '11 at 16:55
up vote 7 down vote

I think both are grammatically correct but that "newfound" has simply become far more popular than "newly found". I'd even go so far as to say that "newly found" sounds somewhat strange to the modern ear. Consider the Ngram below, which clearly shows that "newfound" has all but replaced "newly found" in contemporary English.

enter image description here

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Well, 'all but replaced' is a bit strong. If you look at the frequency of newly found you can see that it actually stagnates with newfound going up very much. Coca will tell you that newfound is mostly used in magazines and that's probably the reason why it jumped that high. Newly found is still dominant in academic use. – Unreason Dec 12 '11 at 13:09
up vote 5 down vote

The words "newfound" and "newly found" are not quite synonyms. Or at least, they're usually used for different classes of nouns. Checking Google hits, choosing two random pages (19 & 28), and eliminating proper nouns, 9 out of the first 12 hits for "newfound" were emotions, abilities, or abstract ideas, whereas 11 of the first 12 hits for "newly found" were actual physical objects. The examples are below. So going by these examples, "respect" should be "newfound".

See this Google Ngram for more evidence of this distinction (it's newly found species but newfound feelings). The physical/abstract distinction isn't quite right, because newfound friends is more frequent than newly found friends, although not as much so as something like respect.

newfound fame
newfound attitude
newfound aggressiveness
newfound urban calm
newfound respect
newfound film star
newfound freedoms
newfound red galaxies
newfound abilities
newfound interest
newfound maturity
newfound alien planet

newly found Rosa Parks essay
newly found ocean floor rare earths
newly found trend
newly found Star Wars footage
newly found orbiting companion [of a planet] newly found meteorite
newly found alien planet
newly found elderly diabetic subjects
newly found codices
newly found Picasso paintings
newly found treasures
newly found crack across the Pine Island glacier.

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“Newfound fame” and “newfound respect” are especially common. It seems newfound is more idiomatic, used in set phrases, whereas “newly found” is more generic and literal (i.e., “just recently discovered”). – Jon Purdy Dec 9 '11 at 22:30

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