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I'm told that both forms below are punctuated correctly with the hyphens. But both phrases have distinctly different meanings. I do not understand the difference.
Full hyphenation: ninth-to-twelfth-floor lights
Suspended hyphenation: ninth- to twelfth-floor lights
What is the difference in meaning between these two phrases (full hyphenation vs suspended hyphenation)?
Thank you.
There’s only a possible difference I can see.
Imagine a building where you converted the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth floors into a single, high-ceiling, floor. If you did not want to renumber the floors above, you could call such floor the ninth-to-twelfth floor. And its lights would be the ninth-to-twelfth-floor lights.
The ninth- to twelfth-floor-lights would be the lights of the individual ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth floors in an unconverted building.
