Tricky prepositions
YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED by FADZILAH AMIN
I REFER to your answer in Mind Our English on April 2, “the boys are playing football on the field”, how do we know when to use on and when to use in?
Is “the cows are grazing in the field” acceptable? Can you explain the usage of in, on, and at.
– LKP
English prepositions are among the hardest items to master in learning the language. A lot of the time, the choice of one preposition over another is determined not by logic, but by usage. That is why a lot of reading is recommended when we want to try and learn a language really well, because we get used to certain natural combinations of words in our reading, without having to learn up hundreds of pages of rules or examples.
Referring to the two sentences above, it is customary to say that people play certain games (e.g. football, netball, rugby, hockey, etc) “on a field” but anything to do with farming or animal rearing uses “in the field”. That is why we say “The cows are grazing in the field.” or “The farmer is working in his field.”
It would take several pages, maybe several dozen pages, to write about the use of “in, on, and at” in English. If you are in doubt about which preposition to use in a certain situation, try looking up a word connected with that situation in an Advanced Learner’s Dictionary and if you are lucky, you may see there some examples of the use of the preposition that you need.
Alternatively, you can do an Internet search with an asterisk standing for the preposition you are uncertain of: for example you can search for “the cows are grazing * the field” (don’t forget to enclose your clause or phrase within double quotation marks).
Meanwhile let me quote from an answer I gave a reader nearly five years ago about the use of “in, on, and at” before certain nouns:
School – “At school” when answering a question such as: “Where’s your daughter this morning?” The phrase also means “attending school” as in the sentence: “Two of my children are still at school.” In American English, the phrase “in school” is used.
Field – “In the field” when referring to a field with crops, such as a paddy field or a wheat field. Usually “on the field” when referring to a playing field such as a football field, eg “The players are already on the field, waiting for the match to begin.” If a field is a meeting point for you and a friend, you can say: “Meet me at the school field tomorrow.”
Hospital – If you are ill and have a bed in a hospital ward, you are “in hospital”. If you are visiting someone there, you are “at the hospital.”
Playground – “in the playground”.
Airport – “at the airport”
Market –“At the market” when referring to a place such as a fish, meat and vegetable market.
Shop – “In the shop” if you’re actually inside one of them. But if someone phones and asks your daughter where you are, she would say you’re “at the shop”.
Farm – Usually, “on the farm”; sometimes “at the farm”.
Sea – We swim in the sea, but we sail on the sea. If someone is on a long voyage, he can be said to be “at sea”, but this phrase can also mean “confused or lost”.
Beach – Usually, “on the beach”; sometimes, “at the beach”.
As far as ...
On May 21, Mind Our English published my letter, headed “American quirk”, in which I referred to an oft-ocurring American practice of not completing the phrase “as far as ... is concerned”, by dropping “is concerned”.
Fadzilah Amin commented that she had not personally come across this American habit. I therefore went on the alert and was rewarded by two articles – attached to this e-mail – which appeared on June 29 in a local English daily.
Venus Williams and Andy Roddick (both are Americans) use the truncated phrase. Williams said: “As far as her game, she does everything well.”
Roddick was quoted as saying, “As far as first serve percentage, I can normally guess within two or three percent.”
I have also collected several more specimens, from the Internet of the use of “As far as ... (without ending with either “is/are concerned” or “goes/go”)
1. “What’s the best wagon today as far as safety and gas mileage?” (ask.cars.com/2008/02/whats-the-best.html)
2. “What is the best car/truck to buy as far as reliability?” (www.answerbag.com/q_view/416560)
3. “As far as motion detection, Dr Paul Miller at the University of Wisconsin indicates ...” www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&A=2562&S=0&SourceID=69
4. “As far as food, ...” (en.wiktionary.org/wiki/as_far_as)
– I HO
Thank you for the specimens you have collected as evidence of usage of the truncated version of “as far as ...”, especially the quotations from Venus Williams and Andy Roddick which are topical.
I have now found an entry under “as far as” originating from the online The American Heritage Dictionary, with comments that are interesting and fairly long. This can be accessed from the following sites on the Internet. I cannot reproduce it for copyright reasons:
On a less serious note, do you think Venus Williams and Andy Roddick would have won their respective Finals had they been in the habit of using this expression properly?
Correct pronunciation
How should the word “their” be pronounced? Some pronounce it “di ar”, some pronounce it “there”.
According to the dictionary, it is pronounced the same way as the word “there”. However, according to my son’s teacher, teachers in schools are teaching students to pronounce it as “di ar”. If this is not the correct way, why continue doing it? I think we should adhere to good pronunciation from young.
– KATHRYNN
Indeed, “there” and “their” has the same pronunciation. In its simplest form, the pronunciation is /the:(r)/ – with “th” pronounced as in “the” (not “d”) and “e” pronounced as in “get”, but longer. Some speakers of British English, however, use the diphthong “e + schwa” instead of the long “e”, but it is not “ia”. “Schwa” is the vowel sound in the first syllable of “about” and its phonetic symbol is an upside down “e”.
