Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[missdaredevil]

She fell out a door.
Is an *of* required?
She fell out of a door.

[bud]

Hmm... To be grammatical, you would need the "of..." But to fall out of something really means (at least to me) that you fall downward - she fell out of the car; he fell out of the treehouse.

To fall out of a door doesn't make sense to me. The motion is more horizontal than vertical. Probably better is: She fell through the door.

Anyone else have an opinion on this?

[Force_9]

Depends on what kind of door she fell through. Like bud said, if it's horizontal, "fell through the/a door" will probably do it.

I don't claim to be anything near a grammar expert, it just sounds right
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[missdaredevil]

[bud]

Well, what I was trying to say was that when falling out of a car or a treehouse, the motion is more downward than forward. "To fall out of" conveys that the force of gravity is affecting the motion. At least, that is my own concept of the expression.

However, to fall through a door, I picture more of a forward motion. If you fall through a door, most likely you will also fall to the ground, but that would be after falling through the door. At the point of going through the door, your motion would be mostly forward. The primary force at work is not gravity, but whatever propelled you forward.

"Fell through a door" is not very specific about what actually happened. Perhaps you were pushed and then crashed through a glass door (breaking the glass as you fell through it). Maybe you were about to walk through an opened door, tripped, and then fell through it instead. You might have been leaning against a closed door talking to someone, but your weight forced the door open causing you to fall through it.

Hope that helps.

[LucentShade]

In a related subject, when you are falling off something, no "of" is required, even though many natives use it.

"She fell off the ladder." --correct

"She fell off of the ladder." --not correct, but people sometimes say it.