[Editors] a word use question

[William T. G. Litant]

And I haven’t used a double-hyphen since the ribbon on my Underwood No. 5 wore out. ;)



On Mar 4, 2014, at 3:49 PM, David L Chandler <dlc1 at MIT.EDU> wrote:

I like Ezra's rewriting of the sentence better than mine. But I vigorously dispute that use of a hyphen, which seems just wrong. (I think compound-noun is wrong too).


On Mar 4, 2014, at 3:33 PM, Ezra Haber Glenn wrote:

> 
> As usual when encountering a tricky usage question, I would try to
> avoid the issue by rewriting as:
> 
> Shifting from asphalt to grass to photovoltaic cells, spaces can be
> dynamically reconfigured -- from city-street to park to energy
> source -- on demand.
> 
> (Also, note the introduction of the hyphen in "city-street" --
> although not everyone agrees on this point, I think it is important,
> since the noun city is being used as an adjective as part of a
> compound-noun.)
> 
> --Ezra
> 

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