--for those who speak English as their second language or who just want to improve their writing
(Text-only version of Quirks of English)
Why did that editor cross out all my of's? Why did Jan change my in to into or my into to in to? In our last Word of the Week article, we introduced idioms. In this Quirks of English article we expand some idiomatic uses of English prepositions.
Anger is at a thing but is with a person.
Angry at his stalling car, Ted got out and kicked the tires.
Marlowe was angry with Tom for coming in late again.
One can arrive at a small place but one arrives in a large city.
Even though they had arrived at the Indiana-Ohio line at noon, they did not arrive in Cleveland until 4 p.m. because of Cedar Point traffic outside Sandusky.
Beside means "by the side of" but besides means "in addition to."
My three squabbling children all wanted to sit beside their dad.
NASA has several centers besides the Lewis Research Center.
Use between with two people but among with more than two.
The project was divided between the Materials and Structures
groups.
In the winter, viruses spread quickly among the workers.
Into denotes direction and entrance (it implies movement); in shows location (literal or figurative).
He was in his office, but he came into his office.
Differ with means "a disagreement of opinion," but differ from means "a difference between persons or things."
An engineer differs from a scientist.
He differed with his boss on many political issues.
(Differ is used as a verb in these sentences.)
For American publications, use from with the adjective different. (The British use different than.)
She is very different from her brother.
With compound modifiers that describe a single subject or object, use the appropriate preposition for each modifier instead of letting one preposition try to do the work of two. In the second example, temperment and interest refer to the single subject (Robert). Writers frequently violate this rule.
Sheryl was intimidated by the local politicians and annoyed
with the press.
Robert has neither the temperment for nor an interest in
industrial sales.
NOT
Robert has neither the temperment nor an interest in industrial
sales.
Finally, the "catch-all" rule for idiomatic prepositions is to delete all that are superfluous. It's part of our low-fat diet for bloated writing. Try your hand (an idiom) at this in these sentences:
All of the media rushed in to put the blame on the militia groups and the NRA and continued on and covered over the real issue behind the Oklahoma City bombing. Even after the incident was over with, they planned on interviewing militia leaders wherever they were at and usually got off of the subject in their reports.
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Last updated: 1/20/2009