Statues like this are rare, but they have five center-piece in their garden
The sentence means that there are 5 rare statues placed prominently in the center of the garden.
Should that be hyphenated or not?
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1The sentence doesn't make sense, specifically 'five centre-piece', with or without a hyphen. What does it mean?– Michael HarveyCommented Sep 4 at 21:52
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Do you mean centre place? If so, the answer is 'no', it shouldn't be hyphenated.– Michael HarveyCommented Sep 4 at 21:59
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And if you mean centerpiece, no, that's one word. But again this would be a strange sentence for it, since there is usually only one "centerpiece," in the center. Please use the "Edit" button to explain more about the meaning you want.– Andy BonnerCommented Sep 4 at 23:24
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Adverb? No. There is a common mistake of finding synonyms A-B and synonyms B-C and figuring that A can substitute for C. It often doesn’t, but no harm in using a pronoun: “Statues like this are rare, but they have five of them in their garden.” Statue and centerpiece are not close synonyms. Yet, A could be a C, and C could be an A– Yosef BaskinCommented Sep 5 at 0:14
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1@MichaelHarvey — I think it is being used here like "dead center". Compare "The dead center of town" (noun) and "He is standing dead center in the yard." (adverb).– Ray ButterworthCommented Sep 6 at 15:24
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2 Answers
I'm not certain I understand your question, but here is my answer:
As a noun, centerpiece is one word, no hyphen. A common definition would be a floral arrangement that's placed in the center of a dinner table.
If you have pieces of anything in a circle and one in the center, the latter might be called the center piece (2 words, no hyphen), with center functioning as an adjective to describe piece.
Centrepiece isn’t generally an adverb, but it can be placed within an adverbial phrase:
Statues like this are rare, but they have five as the centrepiece in their garden.
This works if you mean that the five statues constitute the focal point of a larger display; that is, if there are more statues or greenery or whatnot around those five.
Statues like this are rare, but they have five as the centrepiece of their garden.
This works if the statues are not part of a larger display as such, but are simply the focal point of the garden.
There is no need to hyphenate. The word is most often spelled as an unhyphenated compound.
