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Here are the corrected phrases and short, easy rules to help you understand why they changed. I fixed hyphens, redundancy, and punctuation so the list sounds natural.

  • Round target
  • Oval-shaped swing chair (clearer than "oval swing chair")
  • Globe ("spherical globe" is redundant; a globe is already spherical)
  • Square map
  • Rectangular flag
  • Cube-shaped street organ (you can also say "cubic street organ," but "cube-shaped" is clearer)
  • Triangular sign
  • Diamond-shaped kite (use a hyphen, not an en dash)
  • Pyramid-shaped tent
  • Cylindrical crawling tunnel
  • Trapezoid-shaped boat (or "trapezoidal boat")
  • Star-shaped piñata
  • Hexagonal spider web
  • Heart-shaped glasses

Short rules for a 10-year-old:

  • Use a hyphen when two or more words work together as one adjective before a noun: "heart-shaped glasses," "star-shaped piñata."
  • No hyphen for single-word shape adjectives: "round target," "square map."
  • If the shape word comes after the noun (after a form of "be"), you usually don’t hyphenate: "The glasses are heart shaped."
  • Avoid redundancy: don’t say both a shape adjective and a noun that already means that shape (for example, say "globe," not "spherical globe").
  • Use a hyphen (-), not an en dash (–).
  • Be consistent: either write items with lowercase (if they’re fragments) or capitalize each item the same way.

If you want, I can rewrite the whole list in sentence form, make them lowercase, or make them into labels for a picture. Which would you like?


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