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Prepositions
Introduction
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The last part of speech we will examine in this unit is prepositions. While prepositions are often less obvious than parts of speech like nouns and verbs, you use them all of the time. Using them correctly and intentionally will go a long way towards crafting clear, scholarly writing.
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Learning Outcomes
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By the end of this learning experience, you should feel confident with the following:
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Identifying prepositions
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Utilizing prepositions clearly
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Eliminating extraneous prepositional phrases
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Assessing when to integrate prepositions
Prepositions
Prepositions are relation words; they can indicate location, time, or other more abstract relationships. A preposition combines with another word (usually a noun or pronoun) called the complement. Prepositions are still in bold, and their complements are in italics:
• The woods behind my house are super creepy at night.
• She sang until three in the morning.
• They were happy for him.
• He counted to three.
Prepositions generally come before their complements (e.g., in England, under the table, of Elena). However, there are a small handful of exceptions, including notwithstanding and ago:
• Financial limitations notwithstanding, Phil paid back his debts.
• He was released three days ago.
Prepositions of location are pretty easily defined (near, far, over, under, etc.), and prepositions about time are as well (before, after, at, during, etc.). Prepositions of “more abstract relationships,” however, are a little more nebulous in their definition. The video below gives a good overview of this category of prepositions:
Note: The video said that prepositions are a closed group, but it never actually explained what a closed group is. A closed group simply refers to a part of speech that doesn’t allow in new words. While it’s easy to invent new nouns (e.g., selfie, Google), you can’t invent new words in a closed group.
So far, all of the prepositions we’ve looked at have been one word (and most of them have been one syllable). The most common prepositions are one-syllable words. According to one ranking, the most common English prepositions are on, in, to, by, for, with, at, of, from, as.
There are also some prepositions that have more than one word:
• in spite of (She made it to work in spite of the terrible traffic.)
• by means of (He traveled by means of boat.)
• except for (Joan invited everyone to her party except for Ben.)
• next to (Go ahead and sit down next to Jean-Claude.)
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Practice
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Once you have completed the practice quiz, scroll up inside the quiz box and
click "view score" and see the correct answers.
Using Prepositions
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A lot of struggles with prepositions come from trying to use the correct preposition. Some verbs require specific prepositions. Here’s a table of some of the most commonly misused preposition/verb pairs:
different from
need of
comply with
profit by
dependent on
glad of
think of or about
bestow upon
Some verbs take a different preposition, depending on the object of the sentence:
agree with a person
differ from (person or thing)
reconcile with (a person)
compare with (to determine value)
agree to a proposition
differ from or with an opinion
reconcile to (a statement or idea)
compare to (because of similarity)
part from (a person)
confide in (to trust in)
confer on (to give)
convenient to (a place)
part with (a thing)
confide to (to intrust to)
confer with (to talk with)
convenient for (a purpose)
When multiple objects take the same preposition, you don’t need to repeat the preposition. For example, in the sentence “I’ll read any book by J.K. Rowling or R. L. Stine,” both J. K. Rowling and R. L. Stine are objects of the preposition by, so it only needs to appear once in the sentence. However, you can’t do this when you have different prepositions. Let’s look at this using a common phrase: “We fell out of the frying pan and into the fire.” If you leave out one of the prepositions, as in “We fell out of the frying pan and the fire,” the sentence is saying that we fell out of the frying pan and out of the fire, which would be preferable, but isn’t the case in this idiom.
Prepositions in Sentences
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You’ll often hear about prepositional phrases. A prepositional phrase includes a preposition and its complement (e.g., “behind the house” or “a long time ago“). These phrases can appear at the beginning or end of sentences. When they appear at the beginning of a sentence, they typically need a comma afterwards:
• You can drop that off behind the house.
• A long time ago, dinosaurs roamed the earth.
• As the saying goes, hard work always pays off.
Ending Sentences with a Preposition
It is 100 percent okay to end a sentence with a preposition. The rule against doing so stems from Latin, which belongs to a completely different language family than English. Using a terminal preposition can often make your writing smoother and more concise. Winston Churchill is credited with saying “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put,” when he was criticized for his use of terminal prepositions. (A more natural way to phrase Churchill’s glib quote would be “This is the sort of English I will not put up with.”)
However, it’s still best to avoid using terminal prepositions unnecessarily. If your sentence ends with a preposition and would still mean the same thing without the preposition, take it out.
For example:
• Where are you at?
• That’s not what it’s used for.
If you remove at, the sentence becomes “Where are you?” This means the same thing, so removing at is a good idea. However, if you remove for, the sentence becomes “That’s not what it’s used,” which doesn’t make sense.
Edit Strings of Prepositional Phrases
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When used in moderation, prepositions are invaluable: they work as connecting words, linking the object of the preposition to a word that appears earlier in the sentence. Like linking verbs, however, prepositions do not convey action, nor do they subordinate one thought to another. Instead, they merely link chunks of meaning that readers must gather together in order to understand the sentence.
When used excessively, as demonstrated by the following example, prepositional phrases create a choppy, list-like style:
Sample: The major objective of this study was to determine the perceived effects of the union on monetary and on non-monetary aspects of compensation over the period in which respondents to the survey had been union members
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Because this sentence occurs in the conclusion of a five-page published essay, a careful editor should probably have eliminated this sentence altogether. Let's face it: If the readers still don't have the point after five pages, there is little hope for them. Nevertheless, the editor and author could have improved the sentence by reducing the number of prepositions:
Sample: This study examines how the union affects monetary and non-monetary aspects of compensation.
Practice
Once you have completed the practice quiz, scroll up inside the quiz box and
click "view score" and see the correct answers.
Congratulations!
You have now completed this module. Please complete the module assessment below. Once you have finished, proceed to the next module.