Can you provide example code written in another language that accomplishes the same (element mapping) which you find easier to read or looks better? I'm not sure Java, PHP, Perl, C# or Python could offer an improvement, besides catering to a preference of keywords ("begin", "end", etc.) over non-letter tokens (parentheses, set braces, etc.). And string interpolation doesn't seem like it would be the source of either more or fewer bugs than string/variable concatenation.
Also bear in mind that, in Ruby, almost all blocks can be delimited with a "do/end" pair rather than set braces.
Also bear in mind that, in Ruby, almost all blocks can be delimited with a "do/end" pair rather than set braces.