Prepositions

I can't believe you are actually reading a post about prepositions! But since you are here, read on.

Prepositions are all those common words that work with a noun or pronoun to show the noun's relation to the rest of the sentence.

Words such as

around about before after up down in out on to with without near by through for against

are prepositions.

Where does the preposition go?

If you ask anyone what they know about prepositions most will parrot that you must never end a sentence with a preposition. This is true if you are writing Latin, but it is not a hard and fast rule in English. Generally speaking the preposition goes before the noun/pronoun it is attached to

Francis is going to university. 

But this doesn't always have to be. Both versions of the question below are acceptable.

To which university is Francis going?

Which university is Francis going to?

 The first version sounds very formal to us but you will still see it in some writing. The second version reflects how we speak.  Some people would rather avoid writing the second version but feel that the first version is too formal. You can solve the problem (sometimes) by changing the verb. In this case we can change 'go' to 'attend'

Which university will Francis attend?

Repeating prepositions

Usually there is no need to repeat prepositions in a list within a sentence

I am allergic to dairy products and (to) nuts.

But sometimes you need to so you can avoid a confusing sentence

We are talking about the movie and about eating chocolates.

Just talking about eating chocolates, not actually consuming them.

Prepositions in a title or a headline

What if you have a capitalised heading? Do you use a capital letter at the start of a preposition? This is a fuzzy area and it can vary. A good rule of thumb is to capitalise a preposition if it is five letters or longer

Between the Covers

Gone with the Wind

How do I know if it's a preposition?

Look it up in the dictionary! Weird, huh? If you're stuck without a dictionary you could try a little trick. Take 'with' out of  'Gone with the Wind' and put your suspected preposition in. If it sounds like it could conceivably fit in you probably have a preposition on your hands ('Gone Through the Wind', 'Gone to the Wind', 'Gone down the Wind' etc.).

Which preposition?

There are some standard preposition/verb combinations and we English speakers are terrible at using the correct ones. The use of some prepositions is changing to match our spoken English. My pet hate is 'bored of' instead of 'bored with' or 'bored by'. A quick look at Oxford Dictionaries online showed me that this usage is quite common now and while you are best to avoid it in writing feel free to use it in speech. Nobody tell my kids!

If you aren't quite sure which preposition belongs in your sentence you can just go online and search up 'verb preposition list' and there are any number of websites with references you can use.