[Editors] a word use question

[Andrew Whitacre]

The Germans didn't need hyphens when they named their cattle-marking and beef-labeling supervision duties delegation law: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.

Andrew Whitacre
Communications Director
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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awhit at mit.edu<mailto:awhit at mit.edu>

On Mar 4, 2014, at 4:02 PM, Ezra Haber Glenn wrote:


I agree about "compound noun" -- that must have been a Freudian slip.
And I agree with the endorsement of my rephrasing (I think the goal
was to close with the " -- on demand," which I managed to preserve).
I think the question of "city-street" vs. "city street" could fall
either way (as could "energy-source" vs. 'energy source", by the way)
-- in practice, this really only matters when you run into ambiguity
(imagine these magic spaces could be reconfigured to become streets
that lit themselves: in that case, we'd need to distinguish between
"city-street lights" and the more conventional "city street-lights").

And as Scott knows, all my email is composed on a manual typewriter.
I think of that as an "n-dash," not a double-hyphen.

(Also, how comes you sez "double-hyphen" and not "double hyphen"...?)

--Ezra

At Tue, 4 Mar 2014 15:53:59 -0500, William T G Litant 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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--
Ezra Haber Glenn, AICP
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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