Where to place the word shop, in the extract below. A question of grammar, or are both correct?

Question

Which of the two examples works better, and why?

Example 1:

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s, “Bonnets and Bows,” was without doubt, the prettiest shop on the Parade, and what the crooked, half-timbered cottage lacked in symmetry, it made-up for it with its olde worlde, charming quaintness.

Or, Example 2:

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s shop, “Bonnets and Bows,” was without doubt, the prettiest on the Parade, and what the crooked, half-timbered cottage lacked in symmetry, it made-up for it with its olde worlde, charming quaintness.

Answer 1

Both are correct. However, Example 2 flows better and is therefore the better choice to make if it's your writing.

In Example 1, we spend the first line knowing a proper name for an object that we haven't seen:

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s “Bonnets and Bows” [what is this?] was, without a doubt, the prettiest shop [oh, it's the prettiest shop], ...

as compared to

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s shop, [oh, she has a shop?] “Bonnets and Bows”, [and it happens to have a name] was without doubt the prettiest [and it's the prettiest] on the Parade, ...

In the first example, you're mentioning the fact that the object is a shop among the properties of the shop. That's not incorrect, but it's confusing. It makes more sense to first introduce an object that's a shop, and then list its properties.

Now, none of that fixes the fact that the sentence is a run-on with too many commas. I would put a period after 'Parade', regardless of which option you choose:

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s shop, “Bonnets and Bows”, was without a doubt the prettiest on the Parade. What the crooked, half-timbered cottage lacked in symmetry it made up for with its charming, old world quaintness.

Answer 2

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s, “Bonnets and Bows,” was without doubt, the prettiest shop on the Parade, and what the crooked, half-timbered cottage lacked in symmetry, it made-up for it with its olde worlde, charming quaintness.

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s shop, “Bonnets and Bows,” was without doubt[,] the prettiest on the Parade, and what the crooked, half-timbered cottage lacked in symmetry[,] it made-up for it with its olde worlde[,] charming quaintness.

There is a slight repetition problem. Shop and cottage are the same place, so there is some element in both versions of what H.W. Fowler called "elegant variation", by which he meant a writer's not-so-elegant hunt for different words to denote the same thing. But in the first version the eye and ear of the reader land on the word shop more emphatically than they do in the second, and it's also in closer proximity to cottage. In the second, the repetition is more effectively disguised, and I prefer it for that reason.

I've put square brackets round commas that I would omit if I were writing it. I would also do a little word-swap, and say "its charming olde-worlde quaintness".

I also agree with rsegal that it might be better split into two sentences.

Answer 3

I agree with @rsegal that the second example, with "shop" placed earlier, works better to establish the scene quickly within the sentence, allowing the reader's mental image to grow smoothly and naturally.

There are a few other nits I would pick with it, though.

Original:

Hilary Hummingbird- Smyth’s shop, “Bonnets and Bows,” was without doubt, the prettiest on the Parade, and what the crooked, half-timbered cottage lacked in symmetry, it made-up for it with its olde worlde, charming quaintness.

Modified:

Hilary Hummingbird-Smyth’s shop, “Bonnets and Bows,” was without doubt the prettiest on the Parade; and what the crooked, half-timbered cottage lacked in symmetry, it made up for with its charming old-world quaintness.

• There should be no space after the hyphen in a hyphenated name.
• without doubt needs either 2 commas or none; I think none looks and flows better.
• the semicolon makes it look less like a run-on sentence.
• phrasal verbs like "made up" never take a hyphen when used as verbs, only when they are used as adjectives. ("He made up a story", but "his made-up story was silly.")
• conversely, "old-world" needs the hyphen to be a proper adjective phrase, although it does not need the affectational spelling style.
• I can't explain why exactly, but charming clearly needs to be the lead adjective.
• with only two adjectives, you don't need the serial commas.