[Editors] a word use question

[Denis Paiste]

Many interesting proposals here. While agree among is the grammatically correct choice, I also think rewording is better.
How about:

Spaces can shift on demand from city street to park to energy source alternately configured with asphalt, grass or photovoltaic cells.

(Kind of line reconfiguring the Garden from ice rink to basketball court?)

-- Denis Paiste
Science Writer
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[cid:9D0B94F7-F218-4FDE-B468-CF22630A6D7C]


On Mar 4, 2014, at 3:53 PM, William T. G. Litant <wlitant at MIT.EDU<mailto:wlitant at MIT.EDU>> wrote:

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<mailto: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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