Category Archives: Parts of Speech – Prepositions

Woman having make-up applied to her face

Prepositions that lose their identity: phrasal verbs as nouns (and adjectives)

Phrasal verbs as nouns Prepositions are easy to identify when they are fulfilling their main function: connecting nouns. But their nature becomes less clear when they combine with verbs to form phrasal verbs, and even less clear when those verbs are used as nouns and adjectives. Just like many other verbs are used as nouns,

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Winston Churchill, British prime minister during World War II

Grammar up with which I will not put: prepositions at the end of a sentence

That is grammar up with which I will not put Winston Churchill never said or wrote these words, which are frequently attributed to him (but since we are only a couple of weeks past the anniversary of Victory in Europe, why not have a photo of the inspirational wartime leader?). The joke quote seems to

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Between you and me or between you and I? Prepositions and pronouns

It’s actually very simple: there are some pronouns that we use after prepositions, and some that we don’t. In technical terms, prepositions have an object, and we use the dative form of pronouns to show this. Now, since I won’t be explaining either objects or dative forms for a while yet, this may not make

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