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I want to say something, but the resulting sentence is way too long and awkward, so I was wondering if there was a way to express that nails are nailed all over the surface of a cylinder.

Here's an example sentence:

Nails are nailed all over the surface of the hollowed cylinder such that if you were to put your finger inside of it you would likely get hurt.

Is there a better and more concise way of saying this?

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  • How about "There are nails all over the hollow cylinder, so if you put your finger inside..."? "nailed" and "the surface of" are unnecessary.
    – Anonymous
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 9:30

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Frankly, in my view there is nothing wrong with the example:

Nails are nailed all over the surface of the hollowed cylinder such that if you were to put your finger inside of it you would likely get hurt.

although i would tend to write "so that" instead of "such that".

However this could be split in two:

Nails are nailed all over the surface of the hollow cylinder. If you were to put your finger inside the cylinder, you might well get hurt.

I am not sure that this is any large improvement, however.

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(Edit) Seems I misread the question. The answer, if you want to avoid the repetition of "nail" you can say:

Nails have been hammered in all over the cylinder.

Original answer below:

Saying "nails are nailed all over the cylinder" implies they are point in. If you want to say they are point out say:

There are nails sticking out all over the cylinder.

Otherwise, if you want to imply they are point in, but want to avoid the repetition of "nail" you can say:

Nails have been hammered in all over the cylinder.

This is still slightly ambiguous, although by default the reader would assume they were nailed in the usual way, point in. It is possible to say something like:

Nails have been hammered in all over the cylinder so they stick out in all directions.

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    Since the original example said one would be hurt if placing a finger inside the cylinder, i think "point in" was intended.
    – David Siegel
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 1:18
  • Shouldn't it be "sticking in" instead of "sticking out"?
    – user88427
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 1:26
  • @blackbird: they're sticking out of the surface and into the inside, so either works, but "sticking out" is more likely, because it's a common phrase.
    – Anonymous
    Commented May 1, 2019 at 9:32

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