I think Acht should have a capital letter, as it is a noun

https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/achtgeben

Thanks for the reply. Is it not the case that the Spelling Reforms of 1996 specify that the noun and verb should be written separately. This article gives Acht geben and Rad fahren as examples (Rule 5):

https://www.learn-german-online...ing-reform.htm

Many of the rules were too superficial to properly reflect the subtleties of the German language, and there have been necessary, more or less silent revisions, which means that much of the older material is outdated. Some spellings they tried to get rid of have made a full return, replacing the reformed spellings, while others have returned as spelling variants. The process is still not finished.

In the German language, there is the phenomenon that a noun and a verb can merge into a new verb which is then written in one word. This is how "achtgeben" (synonymous with "aufpassen") came to be. Writing it in one word without a capital letter is actually a service to the reader (not to the writer), because capital letters stand out, and it is the natural thing to reduce spaces and capitals whenever possible. :) However, these noun-verb compounds, such as "achtgeben", are not very stable: once other elements, such as adjectives, are added, the noun part fully becomes a noun again ("größte Acht geben"). This example is a bit artificial, because it is rarely used.

"achtgeben" is a correct spelling. That being said, "Acht geben" is in no way a new invention. People used it back in the 19th century as well. I would always prefer "achtgeben". When "achtgeben" is inflected, "acht-" is treated as a prefix and keeps its lowercase letter.

Hope that answers the question satisfactorily. 🙂

That’s great. Thanks very much.