Teacher Discussion Forums

When giving instructions to students.
I 've heard both. Does any of them sound odd? Doesn't matter?
Thanks

Either is fine, as far as I can see. Or, you could say (my personal preference) to page 20.

It's not that they all technically mean the same thing. There are technical differences. But the practical value of all of them is that students will open their books so that they are looking at page 20. And none of them can reasonably be said to be grammatically incorrect in this sort of context.

Larry Latham

Heh--I'd use "to" as well.

I generally just say, "OK, page 20," or "turn to page 20."

If you want to use the verb, "open", however, I think "at" is more common, although "on" is by no means wrong.

If a student was to ask me where we were in the book, I would definitely answer, "We're on page 20."

Prepositionally yours,

Andy.

"On" sounds somewhat odd to me - using "at" and "to" make more sense in conjunction with the action of opening, referring to a postion in the book, whereas "on" sounds like it is referring to a position on a particular page in the book. However I'm sure I wouldn't blink if I heard "on".

Good morning all!

Let me throw a fly into the ointment!

I don't like either at or on since they are, for me, stationary prepositions, and the instruction "open" implies some movement, thus I would always use "to". I would say that the information I wanted them to consult was "on" page 20. I might say "he's at page 20" meaning that in his progression in the book, he has reached the point of page 20. If a student said "open on" or "at" in this proposed context, I would probably correct that student with "to".

HA HA HA HA HA! (evil-mad-applied-linguist-laughter!)

peace,
revel.

revel fiendishly wrote:stationary prepositions

Never heard of 'em. What do you call the other kind? Gesticulitions?

Larry Latham

What a fascinating word class prepositions are.

As with everything in grammar there are many ways to butcher a carcass.

Historically, all prepositions originated as words indicating spatial properties, which is why the prepositions of time are the same as the prepositions of place. "Ago" is English's only postposition, and doesn't have a spatal equivelent, although it originally meant "go away".

Larry, the opposite of stationery proposition is variously, mobile preposition, or preposition of direction. It is of course possible to have direction without movement, although such cases usually end up as adjectives or adverbs.

The destinction is useful when teaching the difference between "above" and "over", etc.

As a teacher in Poland I try to get my students to use the mobile/directional forms. A Pole will typically say, "I was in Krakow yesterday," rather than, "I went to Krakow." I like to emphasise this because English has an underlying metaphore of travel, and expressions such as I came up against a problem, or steer clear are best understood if you imagine yourself on a journey.

Polish on the other hand is a very anthropomorphic language. There are for instance a lot more as..as expressions to do with animals than in English. Likewise, women here often wear shoes with very pointy toes, which they invariably refer to as their "shoes' noses".

Andy, what a fascinating post this one is.

In fact, I read it three times. Some parts, I read four or five times. It didn't help: I still didn't understand it.

But all is not lost. I did get the part about butchering a carcass.

Larry Latham

I hope you're not upset with me, Andy. I meant to be humorous. But, seriously, I wish you'd elaborate on some of the points you made above. I really didn't understand much. Here are some of my questions:

How does your historical fact that all prepositions originated as words indicating spatial properties explain why the prepositions of time are the same as the prepositions of place?

Nice factoid about "ago." Didn't know that.

Which distinction is useful when teaching the difference between "above" and "over", etc.? Is it the distinction between adjectives and adverbs? Or the distinction between adjectives and adverbs as against prepositions? Or the distinction between prepositions which imply movement and those which don't? Or the distinction between mobile prepositions and prepositions of direction? Or the distinction between stationary prepositions and stationery prepositions? And how do you use this distinction to distinguish between "above" and "over?"

Why do you try to get your students to use the "mobile/directional" forms? What's wrong with, "I was in Krakow yesterday."? I don't detect any problem with it, and I make a meaning distinction between that and, "I went to Krakow." One of these refers to where I was, and the other to a trip I made.

I didn't realize that English has an underlying metaphor of travel. I don't dispute it, because I don't know, but could you elaborate on that just a bit, in addition to the two examples in possible support of your statement? Two examples is shy of the support I think your statement deserves. I can offer two examples of a great many different metaphors, but wouldn't think they suggested a corresponding underlying metaphor in English.

Cute also is the pointy "shoes' noses." I'll take it on your authority that Polish is anthropomorphic, at least as compared with English. English does have it's animal references, though. "Cute as a bug's ear", "...in a pig's eye", "...he's an animal/brute/beast", "...to fall prey to", "...be preyed upon", "my car is a dog", "...to hound someone", "a fat cat", "bull market/bear market", "...you swine", "a road hog", "a mousy woman", "My boss' wife is a shrew!", "...to ferrett out something"...just to mention a few. Is Polish much more so?

As I say, could you elaborate? But I'm also not intending to pin you down if that's the way it seems. If you want to tell me to go soak my head, I can do that!

Larry Latham

Good morning all!

The following thoughts and methods are mine and are not meant to reflect linguistic norms or realities for the rest of you (disclaimer #4321-a).

When teaching people who already know what a "preposition" is in their own language, I try to avoid calling them "prepositions", because the students automatically try to translate those little buggers into their own language and then try to apply that "word for word" translation to both their own and my preposition every time they encounter one or the other. Bad news there, as all of us know.

In my classes, then, I identify "prepositions" as "wild words", and leave it at that. Sometimes they tell us where something is in space. Sometimes in time. And sometimes we peg them onto a verb to modify its meaning into something else. Don't study that list of 148 prepositions (I would say the same of the irregular verb list as well....) but rather, learn them as prefixes and suffixes to the words that surround them.

Yes, Larry, if stationary is that the thing doesn't move, the other prepositions could well be called gesticulitions, kind of like that word, might just use it this year, but what I usually say is that the word in question in the context in question is a wild word of movement. (I must point out that I don't mean wild in the sense of lions in the sveldt, but rather in the sense of a wild card in a card game, one that can change the trump of a trick, for example. That has a special name in Spanish which does not at all mean savage as the name might implicate in English....)

Andrew, I would request the same clarifications as outlined by Larry, though I agree with where you are coming from, I'm not quite sure of what you are saying there a couple of times!

peace,
revel.

How does your historical fact that all prepositions originated as words indicating spatial properties explain why the prepositions of time are the same as the prepositions of place?

Not all prepositions of time are the same as prepositions of place but "in", "on", and "at" certainly are. This is from my own observation,and I've read it in several places. All prepositions of time originated as prepositions of place, however.

One thing you could do is read some Shakespeare, you will notice, for instance that "before" originally meant "in front of". "Before originated as a preposition of place, but now with the sole exception of being out "leg before wicket", is now only a preposition of time.

It shouldn't be surprising that the language evolves this way, time is more abstract than place afterall - you have to experience time, but you can physicallly see and go to a place.

Nice factoid about "ago." Didn't know that.

Source shorter Oxford dictionary.

Which distinction is useful when teaching the difference between "above" and "over", etc.? Is it the distinction between adjectives and adverbs? Or the distinction between adjectives and adverbs as against prepositions? Or the distinction between prepositions which imply movement and those which don't? Or the distinction between mobile prepositions and prepositions of direction? Or the distinction between stationary prepositions and stationery prepositions? And how do you use this distinction to distinguish between "above" and "over?"

"Above" is always stationery but over may imply movement. There is overlap, however. One can say hang a picture over the fireplace or above it. If you want to play safe, though you will never be wrong if you reserve "above" for stationery things and over for moving things. Above also never touches the thing underneath, "over" can, as in drive over sth.

When I was talking about direction without movement, I was thinking of adjectives and adverbs of direction such as "up", "down", "left", "right", "north", "south", "east" and "west", etc. I'm not saying that these words can't imply movement, only that they don't have to.

I can't think of a preposition that implies direction without movement, if you can let me know.

Why do you try to get your students to use the "mobile/directional" forms? What's wrong with, "I was in Krakow yesterday."? I don't detect any problem with it, and I make a meaning distinction between that and, "I went to Krakow." One of these refers to where I was, and the other to a trip I made.

Yes, it's a borderline one. Grammatically correct, but just not the way native speakers say it. I would say, though that if you hear someone talking about lots of places, it begins to sound very odd:

Monday I was in Krakow, Tuesday I was in Warsaw, Wednesday I was in Gdansk. Since you are on a journey, "went" is far more appropiate.

I didn't realize that English has an underlying metaphor of travel. I don't dispute it, because I don't know, but could you elaborate on that just a bit, in addition to the two examples in possible support of your statement? Two examples is shy of the support I think your statement deserves. I can offer two examples of a great many different metaphors, but wouldn't think they suggested a corresponding underlying metaphor in English.

I got this from English Teaching Professional, apparantly the idea originally came from Fred Haliday. I can't remember the edition. Perhaps I should have said "journey" rather than travel, as that implies more than simply getting from A-B. The problem here is that I have asserted that a journey is the underlying metaphore in English, and it is very easy to point to other types of metaphore. I think only statistical analysis would show this, although I think that a native English speaker would also interpret an idea in terms of a journey where there are two or more possible interpretations, one of which is a journey. It is very often the case that when you read something from a student which you intuitively know is wrong, but can't say why, it is a problem of the underlying metaphore. Change it to a journey and it'll usually sound better.

The source of the metaphore can of course be prepositions of movement, but there are other ways of expressing a journey too, such as verbs implying movement such as "go" or nouns such as "path".

Revel used a nice metaphore with, "I see where you're coming from."

Cute also is the pointy "shoes' noses." I'll take it on your authority that Polish is anthropomorphic, at least as compared with English. English does have it's animal references, though. "Cute as a bug's ear", "...in a pig's eye", "...he's an animal/brute/beast", "...to fall prey to", "...be preyed upon", "my car is a dog", "...to hound someone", "a fat cat", "bull market/bear market", "...you swine", "a road hog", "a mousy woman", "My boss' wife is a shrew!", "...to ferrett out something"...just to mention a few. Is Polish much more so?

Well, my Polish still isn't that good, but Polish does have lots of animal metaphores. More significant, though is that it apppears to lack journey metaphores.

As I say, could you elaborate? But I'm also not intending to pin you down if that's the way it seems. If you want to tell me to go soak my head, I can do that!

I would never tell you to go (and) soak your head Larry. Note that in British English this phrase usually has an "and" in US English, the "and can be omitted.

I strive to be brief but become obscure. - Horace.

Thanks, Andy, for the detail. My head is reeling slightly from all that, but one thing did stick out:

You wrote:"Above" is always stationery but over may imply movement. There is overlap, however. One can say hang a picture over the fireplace or above it. If you want to play safe, though you will never be wrong if you reserve "above" for stationery things and over for moving things. Above also never touches the thing underneath, "over" can, as in drive over sth.

Some of this looks good, and I note that you can fly over the ocean, but also, I think, you can fly above it, with a distinction in meaning. Fly over the ocean implies, to me, that you can go from London to New York, and your route will take you on a watery path, even if you never get wet (fly from one side to the opposite side, perhaps). If you fly above the ocean (or desert, mountain, etc.), I get the mental picture that you are flying (motion, hopefully) and the ocean is below your present position, which is to say in this case, I suppose, closer to the core of the Earth and on a direct line from you to the center of Earth. The point is, above does not seem always to be used for stationary things. And even one example to the contrary indicates to me that the "rule" is bogus, and should not be used.

You also wrote:Yes, it's a borderline one [referring to "Yesterday I was in Krakow."]. Grammatically correct, but just not the way native speakers say it. I would say, though that if you hear someone talking about lots of places, it begins to sound very odd:

Monday I was in Krakow, Tuesday I was in Warsaw, Wednesday I was in Gdansk. Since you are on a journey, "went" is far more appropiate

Well, I dunno. I personally think it's dangerous to make a statement like this. "Yesterday I was in Krakow" sounds totally normal to my ear, though apparently not to yours. I wouldn't blink. We should remember, I think, about regional differences creating particular ways of putting things that cannot in any rational sense be said to be incorrect, or even strange sounding, unless we clearly qualify our remarks to indicate that we may be unaware of a perfectly normal construction or pronunciation. English has such a wide geographical distribution, that my exposure here in California might never include certain ways of saying things that are common in Glasgow or Christchurch. But I'd be dead wrong if I said those practices are "incorrect."

Larry Latham

Good morning all!

I wasn't going to say anything about it, but now that Larry has brought it up, I also see absolutely nothing wrong with saying "Yesterday I was in Krakow." Don't know if it means exactly the same thing as "Yesterday I went to Krakow", but there might be a slight difference between being in a place and going to a place. Depends, as usual, what you want to highlight, either the time you were there or the voyage to get there. I'm with Larry, to me it doesn't sound the least bit odd, and I've heard many natives use it to indicate where they have been at any moment in their lives. "Where were you at the time of the crime? I was in Krakow."

peace,
revel.