Job Discussion Forums

[Just a guy]

How do I explain the usage of;

OF

The desk of Tom's.
Map of the World.
My book of names.
The desk of the school.

One of the CT's came over & we talked about this & I couldn't / didn't know how to explain it in simple terms.

What is "of" called (type of speach) & where is a good site that I could print out that will explain it's usage?

Of course, I'll also be hoping to get great `simple explanations from you helpful contributors here at
The forum of Dave's.

[mjed9]

See below post

[mjed9]

Its a preposition of possession

You should have written

The desk of Tom = Tom's desk

Regards

MJED

[leeroy]

Like most prepositions, there isn't a simple answer which covers everything, but (as previously stated) - "of" can be used to denote possession.

But while students love putting the possessed object before the possessor

("The pen of my aunt")

We native speakers prefer to have the possessing object first with a "'s",

("My aunt's pen")

But sometimes the meaning of "of" is a little less clear...

"I'm a teacher of English" does not imply possession as such, rather it defines which field of teaching I am in.

"A demon of the night", "A drinking session of titanic proportions", "An evening of rock and roll" - here we have two noun (phrases), the first being complemented/defined by the second

We use "of" after some gerunds... ("What is the meaning of this?")

We can use "of" with "speak" and "talk", though to my ears it sounds rather dated and formal...

("He was speaking of moving to France")

I think I would use "about"...

We often use it with quantifiers,

"A bit of pizza", "Most of them", "All of us".

And dates, preceding months

"The 12th of December", "The 2nd of last month"

Sure there are lots more, but that's all that comes to mind at the mo'.

Hey Justaguy, have you spotted the spelling and grammar errors in your post yet?

[Just a guy]

Thank youz,
Speeking of errors, it is how she wrote the examples given, I should of said that before. I would of, if I'd of thought of it.
Of course, I did write the post though...

If anyone else would like to add to this thread of mine of, `of, after I see her tomorrow afternoon I certainly wont be the one to of complained if anyone did.

[Glenski]

If I may make a suggestion, even though this is a newbie's forum, questions like this and a few others recently really ought to go in another forum for teachers, not for employment.

[Just a guy]

I didn't this about that Glenski,
After reading your post, I clicked on the `Teaching Training Forum link above, to see if a similar question thread is there, I don't see another Forum for Teachers link from these boards.

After looking there, it isn't for this kind of question.

I then went to the home page here & saw the drop down menus for the different forums & clicked a couple to see what is there. `Plenty...
But I don't like the format of those forums with my slow computer & I'm not sure what one of them I would put this question in either.

Not only that, look at the reply to this question here & the couple other recent ones,
Great discussions & explanations from a few that seem to know each other a little, obviously know the topic, enough to give great replies & even get into a little tit for tat.
Discussions that will not only make me a better new employ but are also going to be used for putting together lesson plans that I will use in my place of employment.

Please tell me / us, which forum we should use instead of this one for this kind of question.

[shmooj]

Hey Glenski, if you don't teach grammar for your job, what do you do?
Come on, this is a JOB discussion forum. You're not paying for the space on the server are you? It meets a need...

[dduck]

I think this was supposed to be an EMPLOYMENT forum, but it has become a job forum also covering subjects that the Teacher, and Teacher Training forums were set up for.

I doubt that (without any intervention from the moderators) no one is going to pay the slightest bit of attention to the original purpose of this forum. Or Rule #54 Object out of control -> leave well alone.

No worries.
Iain

[Lynn]

I think these are the only active forums. I had a questions about textbooks, so I posted in the textbook forum, but no one is reading the textbook forum. It was full of the same exact poster asking about the answers to some exam. It was very disappointed (and annoying). I've thought about posting the same questions on the general forum, but didn't because it's off topic. Now I see that many topics are off topic, so maybe I will post.

[Glenski]

just a guy,
Go to this section of the site.

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/index.php

[Just a guy]

[shmooj]

[Glenski]

[arioch36]

Very entertaining. The Chinese board has become so boring.

Back to the original question, of how to explain "of" I would suggest learning what the native speaker does to show possession. Ie in China they say "de", which has basically the same purpose