Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[dido4]

Who were with you on the afternoon of May 9?

Q1:Why the preposition is not in? We say in the afetrnoon, don't we? Can we use in in the sentence?

Q2:What's the difference?

I got the sentence from an English textbook. And also the following sentence:They were home on the evening of Aug. 7.

Thank you

[pugachevV]

One of the specific meanings of the preposition on is to indicate the day, or part of the day, on which an event happened, so in your example, on is used correctly.

You could say, "On May 8th, in the morning, we are going to have a math test, if you want to use in.