[Editors] a word use question

[Scott R Campbell]

As you saw, I agreed with David and Ezra.  And I strongly support David in his disputation of the hyphen (n-dash).  Even though in the case of ’n-dash’ I DO think a hyphen is called for.  (But not called-for.)  Ain’t we got fun?


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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