“Nowadays” versus “now days” [closed]

Question

Recently, I was auto-corrected by a word processor when I typed in "now days" to "nowadays." Why did it do this to me? "Nowadays" looks and sounds silly, incorrect, and made-up to me.

Which version is appropriate? Which is most appropriate? Where did the word "nowadays" even come from?

Answer 1

Nowadays, the word is nowadays. You can find it in any dictionary (unlike now days). The better ones will also have the etymology:

late 14c., contracted from Middle English nou adayes (mid-14c.), from now + adayes "during the day," with adverbial genitive (see day).

As you can see, it used to be two words — seven centuries ago.

The Corpus of Contemporary American English does have a few cites for now days, but frankly, just look at the figures yourself:

 nowadays    3167
 now days       7

And here are the figures from the British National Corpus:

 nowadays    1556
 now days       0

That's how tiny a minority you're in. For once, the spellchecker is actually right.