Teacher Discussion Forums

I saw a preposition exercise in the newspaper:

1. Stand it _____ the corner.
2. David's getting married _____ the autumn _____ Joyce.
3. Ricky's good friends _____ Tony.
4. Can I pay _____ cheque?

What do you think

William

(If the exercises are completed correctly) they are all good natural idiomatic English. However, sentence 2) could be rephrased as "David and Joyce are getting married in the autumn" (one of the prepositions, "to", could therefore be "dropped" - "David and Joyce" would then sound more like a known, established couple, whereas if you said "to Joyce", maybe (but only maybe) he had several girlfriends up to now, and had finally decided upon which one to marry - which would indeed be "news"!); 3) as "Ricky and Tony are good friends"; and sentence 4) as "Is a cheque okay?" (or "Do you take/accept cheques?" etc). It is harder to imagine any other way to say sentence 1) that would not involve using "in", however, because we are concerned ultimately with a location.

I have said elsewhere (in the "seal or stamp?" thread) that I am a lazy learner, and as a teacher, I also want to try to make language as easy as possible (this time, for other learners), so I tend to prefer to avoid what is difficult if there seems to be easier ways (for learners?) to express themselves (I am also aware, however, that taken to an extreme, this approach would result in denying the student valuable input).

Anyway, when I give students example sentences (or am designing more communicative activities), I not only try to anticipate their communicative needs (and the linguistic means by which they can satisfy those needs), but also try to make sure that there are no (perhaps easier?) "escape routes" (=different ways/forms to express the same meaning), so the students will stand a better chance of grasping exactly when the form under focus is not only possible but probably the ONLY (or at least the easiest or clearest) way to express an intended meaning. That is, I would leave no doubt as to a form's function (to me, function=meaning/use). It is especially interesting to apply this way of thinking in coming up with exercises for relative pronouns...I'm not sure that it is entirely feasible with the "idiomatic" area of prepositions, though...but I think it's worth a try...

By the way, were you just asking if the sentences were okay in themselves (for students to simply complete), or do you have other activities in mind?

Could you please tell me what the answer to Number 3 is? I could only get 75% on that test I thought it was supposed to be a preposition.

If you decide to complete the sentences with prepositions (which, as I said, will result in perfectly acceptable English!), the "correct" and probably only answer would then be:

1) Stand it IN the corner.
2) David's getting married IN the autumn TO Joyce.
3) Ricky's good friends WITH Tony.
4) Can I pay BY cheque?

I didn't repeat "could be rephrased as" after 2), only "as", which you might've interpreted as having the meaning of "is" or "should be", Lorikeet?

But sure, it might be easier to just say "the answer is supposed to be this and only this IN THIS SENTENCE" (that is, I wouldn't present learners with several alternatives sentences with "roughly" the same meaning expressed with different forms/word orders, but would decide beforehand whether the focus would be more on prepositions OR subject(s linked by AND rather than prepositions) + copula + predicate).

Duncan Powrie wrote: 1) Stand it IN the corner.
2) David's getting married IN the autumn TO Joyce.
3) Ricky's good friends WITH Tony.
4) Can I pay BY cheque?

Wow, you got 100%! But can someone please analyse #3 for me? I just found it sounds a little awkward but maybe it doesn't to you.

And what is the difference between "in the corner" and "at the corner"?

William

Oh how funny! Ricky may be good friends with Tony, but when I was looking at it I was thinking of "Ricky's good friends" as the subject. No wonder it didn't make sense. Good thing I didn't have to pass

Good morning all!

Stand it in the corner. Well, when I hear "on the corner" I immediately have the mental image of a street corner where I might meet a friend or find a particular shop. Since "stand it" seems to mean "leave it there standing", I would use "in the corner" because I would probably leave something standing inside a room, for example, but not out on the street. But then, if the it in question is a poster on a stick with a base, advertising the latest sale at my shop, I might just say to my young assistant "Stand it on the corner" or even "Stand it at the corner". Yet, without that additional information, I tend toward "in" because of the above mentioned meaning of "stand it". Had it been just "stand" as an imperative, I would have needed more information (wait for me there, or you've been behaving badly) in order to decide on in or onor at. This sentence certainly has minimal context, though it is there, it might be pretty subtle for a student who does not realize that a corner can be considered the outside point of the right angle or the inside of that same angle.

peace,
revel.

Lorikeet, you mean you thought the apostrophe+s ('s) was POSSESSIVE?! The exercise sentence did have a full stop at the end of it, you know! "Ricky's good friends (along) with/AND Tom...did something (together)..." WOW you are maybe quite ambitious (subconsciously at least). Notice how much I have taken on board the commumicative principles of non-correction, of looking for meaning in every little nugget of poop!


WILLIAM, hi! A simpler explanation than Revel's might be to imagine a corner of a room: |_

If we put it (=+) IN the corner, it will look like this: |+.

On the other hand, "AT the corner" CANNOT refer to INSIDE a room, because it would look like this: +|_

"It" is obviously OUTSIDE the room there!

You might also like to imagine a corner in a room as being like a (smaller) doll within a Russian doll, or imagine what a camera would film if it went in through a door into a room...in...in..ever inwards >>> (the start of "Shadow of the Vampire" is kind of what I am imagining seeing/"filming" here...)

Anyway, if all that doesn't help, just take my word for it that AT and ON are ONLY used with OUTSIDE (i.e. street) corners (and if you're talking about street corners, Revel's explanation has a few points you might like to note).

I feel so sure about this I'm not even going to bother to check up on it.

Oh, William, I forgot to add something about "Stand it AT/ON the corner", I was so busy with "in"!

If the manager and the shop assistant in Revel's situation both worked in an ACTUAL corner shop/shop on a corner, the manager would most likely instruct the shop assistant to simply "Stand it OUTSIDE" (outside there is obviously the corner, so there is no need to specify it/which one).

If they worked in a row of shops, though, there would not be a corner right outside - the corner would be some distance away - so if the manager indeed wanted the assitant to "Stand it AT/ON THE CORNER", that is what he would actually have to say! If there were more than 2 corners, he would specify which by pointing, describing, drawing a map etc; just saying "Stand it outside" would obviously just result in it being put outside (and nowhere near a corner).

By the way, I myself would probably use ON rather than AT in the second situation above, but both sound equally natural in the examples below:

I'll meet you at/on/by the corner in 10 minutes.
I'll meet you at/on/by/OUTSIDE/IN(side) the corner SHOP in 10 minutes.

Note that "(...)A corner..." is possible, despite what you might infer from most of the above sentences. I'll leave you to find out how it is used, though!

You seem to like studying examples and figuring things out for yourself, but I think you will need to look at a LOT more (hopefully real) examples to really begin to see any meaningful patterns emerge (that is, each sentence - if it is real - HAD a meaning in only ONE particular context, and you cannot ever be certain that other contexts would not require quite different sentences). The problem with playing around with only a few sentences, therefore, is that you can start inventing contexts and justifying all sorts of meanings, but it is all in your head! (This is the major difference between semantics and pragmatics).

Have you visited COBUILD's homepage? You can view around 50 concordances for any word you like, FOR FREE! Unfortunately, you can't search for TWO words (collocations) in the concordances, so you will have to hunt through the (random) concordances yourself.

in the corner is inside a building
on the corner is outside

I am good friends with seems a little of a childish expression to me. I think an adult would say I'm a good friend of.......

David's getting married to Joyce in the Autumn
The order given in the example is wrong.

Oh yeah, I didn't think of rephrasing "David's getting married in the autmn to Joyce" as a "halfway" "David's getting married to Joyce in the autumn", because I was too focused on using "and"! I'm not sure if I'd say the original (exercise) sentence is wrong though, but sure, it might be unlikely according to how people usually structure information (I'd need to read up on that, though...AGAIN!).

Hey, how about: "...yeah, ME and X-man are good friends, we go back years..."? The other "I..." examples sound kind of boasting, like a "name" is about to be "dropped"...

"I'm good friends with..." is quite common, SJ, even though it may "seem childish" or not meet the grammatical requirements you need to be satisfied with it. Your alternative : "I'm a good friend of..." claims you are certain that person X thinks of you as a good friend. There's a semantic difference to the two sentences. An "adult" (with a slightly higher grammaitcal standard) would probably say "He/she is a good friend of mine" rather than be so egotistical as to claim the opposite.

wjserson wrote:"I'm good friends with..." is quite common, SJ, even though it may "seem childish" or not meet the grammatical requirements you need to be satisfied with it. Your alternative : "I'm a good friend of..." claims you are certain that person X thinks of you as a good friend. There's a semantic difference to the two sentences. An "adult" (with a slightly higher grammaitcal standard) would probably say "He/she is a good friend of mine" rather than be so egotistical as to claim the opposite.

Seems like Wjserson was thinking along the same lines as me (we must've posted almost simultaneously - I was editing my previous post and didn't actually submit it as early as the time shown, so I think W just beat me to it!), Stevie...

Great minds, Duncan, great minds...

I'd be curious as to what you would have said though, DP. Why not give your 2 cents no matter how close it's be to what I said (besides, I need all the support I can)

Wow, Wjserson, we are gonna end up drinking buddies if things continue like this (and then I will DEFINITELY be saying/slurring things like "You're me besht pal...I larvv yuu...<<BLURGHHH>>" to you, and "He'sh me besht pal <<hic>>" etc to passersby).

Anyway I thought I'd kind of put my tuppeny's worth in already in my "2:34" post (which is immediately above your "2:54" one). I've really gotta start using the PREVIEW option, and stop using the EDIT one!! (Trust me when I say I only correct really bad typos/grammar, I don't alter the essence of what I said because as you know I appreciate and can take a "kicking"). My postings seem to be about the only ones with "edited 1 zillion times" notices!