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The practice of renaming a street Martin Luther King Boulevard has been adopted by many cities in honoring/to honor the civil rights leader.

Please give explanation.

most venerable sir
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  • Either in honoring or to honor works a good deal better here than calling the renaming a practice; for in each city it is presumably a one-time deal. – Brian Donovan Jul 16 '15 at 16:33
  • In general, when it comes to idioms, there is no explanation as to why one is more common than another, beyond the fact that more people use the one instead of the other. Why do more people say "come in" rather than "enter"? It just is. – phoog Jul 16 '15 at 16:40
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    You missed out *in honour of*, which I suspect may be the most common form of all for such contexts. – FumbleFingers Jul 16 '15 at 17:34

1 Answers1

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I think it's usually either "to honor" or "in honor of" (and not "in honoring").

Please give explanation

Just because that's what's idiomatic, I guess.

Maybe "to honor" implies something more timeless (even eternal), or a "perfect" tense, whereas "honoring" would imply a present continuous.

ChrisW
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