English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I was wondering what is the correct way to write the following sentece:
Radiation is a danger both to electronics and the crew.
or
Radiation is a danger to both electronics and the crew.
This answer features a similar question, but with verbs instead. Although it is not the case here, does a similar rule exist?
If there is a possible problem for verbs (split infinitive), there is none in the case of coordinated noun phrases: both orders are used and there is no difference in meaning. However, an examination of Google Books seems to show that "both to" is preferred for coordinated phrases, whereas "to both" is often used for single phrases in the plural (ref.).
