Prepositions II: The Gruesome Bloody Revenge

Classic album. Find the New York Sessions bootleg for the better version though.

Hurrah! Finally, part two of our look at prepositions. The first part débuted back in October, and since then we’ve accumulated quite a lot of thought on the subject over on our Facebook wall. Now, some of you might disdain the whole Facebook thing, and fair enough. But it's handy for us, because it allows us to quickly note down various little things and then discuss them together in a way that’s not really possible here. Think of our Facebook wall as a notepad, and the blog here as thick vellum, powder-blue, gilt-edged stationery. (Which is an amusing contrast when you look at the pooh-y beige clutter of the actual thing).

Anyway, my hope – as ever – is that by giving you real examples pulled from (mostly) Pl>En translations, you will be able to cement your existing understanding of correct preposition usage. So without further ado about nothing, let’s get cracking: 

for/to (1)
Here’s a really common preposition error:

Bad: The mound is open for visitors daily.
Good: The mound is open to visitors daily.

Bad: We are working with various groups participating in the preparations to the championship.
Good: We are working with various groups participating in the preparations for the championship.

The rule (a rule, my god Jim, steady on!) here is:

1. verbs ‘open’ or ‘closed’ + preposition ‘to’ = people, guests, visitors, personnel etc,
2. verbs ‘open’ or ‘closed’ + preposition ‘for’ = repairs, maintenance, cleaning, activities, events etc.

for/to (2)
Here’s a different for/to issue:

Bad: Inflammation and other conditions are dangerous for the whole body. 
Good: Inflammation and other conditions are dangerous to the whole body.

1) It’s important for the organisation to succeed here.
2) It’s important to the organisation that you succeed here.

A) Beating Azarenka in the quarter finals was a necessity for Radwańska to go through to the semis.
B) It was necessary for Radwańska to beat Azarenka in order to go through to the semis.

When you think to yourself, should I use to or for here?, there’s a simple rule to follow (which hopefully I won’t obfuscate here with my clumsy explanations). The rule covers a simple idea – directness. How direct is the relationship between the ideas either side of the preposition? In our examples, danger/body, organisation/success, necessity/going through.

When something has a direct relationship, we use to– It’s important to me that I win. When it’s indirect, we use for – It’s important for the reputation of my team that I win. It’s a subtle difference for sure. In the first case, it’s just me that needs to win. In the second, it’s the other people around me that are affected.

In the first inflammations example above, it’s to because there’s nothing between the danger and the body. In the organisation example, we say to because there’s nothing between the organisation and success, and we say for because ‘you’ stands between them – ‘you’ is the conduit by which the organisation will achieve it’s success. In the tennis example, A) could further be rephrased as Success was a necessity for Agnieszka, which contrasts nicely with B)’s to.

Some final, very common Pl>En examples. How would you re-write these to use for?

- Nuclear arms are a threat to world peace.
- Cold weather is a threat to germs.
- Jim is a threat to gin. 

to/with

Bad: The festival is held in parallel to the largest Book Fair in Poland.
Good: The festival is held in parallel with the largest Book Fair in Poland.

The plain-text, simple phrasing is X is in parallel with Y. If you’re doing something technical however, then you could say in parallel to, e.g. Diode series A runs in parallel to the power line on PCB A, or something funky like that. But everyday, run of the mill use is with.

Props to Mich Translations for supplying the correct preposition for the example there. :)

at/onat/on
At some point along the line, I asked the Facebookers which of the following was correct. I warned them that they both lookcorrect, and that “...one is correct as it is. The other one will only become correct after a small adjustment. But which one, and why?” Here:

1) The meeting will be held at 6 pm at the Bad Art Gallery at ul. Radwańska 8.
2) The meeting will be held at 6 pm at the Bad Art Gallery on ul. Radwańska 8.

What do you reckon? Read on for the explanation! ... The first one is correct as it is. The second, as it stands, is wrong. The “small adjustment” needed to make it right is to remove the street number – 8. This is because in an address with a number, the number is the thing that modifies everything before it. We can not say that we are ON number 8, rather we must say we are AT number 8. But we can still say we are AT a place, ON a street. So, 1) is correct as it is, and 2) will be correct if we delete the number. 

General rule following from that is: at for a specific address or part of the street, on for the street in general. (Where are you now? I’m on Market Street. Meet me at No. 8. It’s at the end of the street).

Adam from Warszawa pointed out that inworks here too (I’m in Market Street, looking lost).

at/in

Bad: Meet film creators and critics at one place.
Good: Meet film creators and critics in one place.

Bad: We dealt with the film creators and critics in one time.
Good: We dealt with the film creators and critics at one time.

Confusion sometimes arises when I explain that one place here puts the film creators and critics (in this example) together in one mixed group of people, rather than putting the two separate groups together in one room. Just going by the idea of specificity and directness, we can see that at one place is wrong. But when we talk about time and the timing of events, we do still say at. Of course, before this gets too complex, remember that alternate phrasing exists - in one stroke; at the same time; at the same time and place. Think of these as whole pieces of fruity phrasing, and all the in/at stuff as something extra.

in/at/during
How about this one? Bearing in mind the point in the first article about what we do with processes, what would you replace this smelly of with?

We had the pleasure of working with the agency as a partner of an international book review.

Mich Translations suggested Top of Formin, and wondered if during and at would work as well? Yes MT, they certainly would. The choice comes down to where or how the subject of the preposition (in this case review) is being used:

In/During a review of the evidence, it was discovered that vital clues were overlooked is fine with either. But in the book review example:

We had the pleasure of working with the agency as a partner during an international book review.

during changes the emphasis ever so slightly from something current, and therefore (presumably) of interest to the overall text it is part of, to something in the past, and therefore old and perhaps less interesting or relevant. Compare these two ideas – they convey a similar sense of enthusiasm and urgency as during and in/at do, respectively:

‘Do you know Sabina?’ ‘Sabina P? Yeah, I worked with her a few years ago. Nice girl.’ and
‘Do you know Sabina?’ ‘Sabina P? Yeah, she’s great! I’d love to work with her again.’

during also makes the whole sentence sound ever so slightly longer and less smooth. But that’s not a right/wrong issue, merely one of style.

The discussion of all this was lengthy (as these things go) and interesting. Mich again: “I think that besides the above, during would also suggest that the book review thing was a longer event/process than if written with another preposition.” You could be right there MT. Possibly because of the relationship with duration, and perhaps from echoes of endurancetoo. On the whole though, I think this is like trying to specify exactly how long ‘several’ or ‘a few’ are, i.e. it might be over-thinking it a little.

Regular correspondent Adam Ł. from WaWa also suggested forand to as possible replacements for the un-loved of: “For would apply to working, and to to partner (if they were partners of the agency participating in the event)”.

In this case, I tend to think that for would imply that the book review people had hired weand agency as employees, which is certainly a possibility, yes. This would be a very, very specific interpretation with a very clear implication. I would emphasise that the context in which this phrasing occurs would be quite rare.

Oh ho! AnotherRadwańska picture! Sneaky Jim, sneaky.

 Bottom of Form

Okey-dokey then. Questions and comments down below, or by email, or swing by our Facebook page and check out the hot debates sure to follow. Or just have a laugh as I totally fail to illuminate further variations on the prepositions theme.

Speaking of which, I’m quite sick of the buggers now. I’ll keep posting them up on FB if I find interesting ones, and I encourage you to do the same – and remember, there are no boundaries here, no stupid questions and no shame in asking things or suggesting flaky ideas. God knows I do enough of that myself, you guys should certainly feel no hesitation in doing same.

Finally, a bit of exciting news. The next stop on our choo-choo of understanding is... drumroll please... ARTICLES! Yes, articles. In honour of our first birthday, February is officially Articles Month. I’ve finally found a way to present this issue, top-to-bottom, in a way that even I can’t foul up. So stay tuned, dear reader, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Articles (But were afraid to ask) will be revealed in a little over a week’s time...