Some days I can barely contain myself.
Those are the days that I like to label as “Prepositions Gone Wild”.
As with the barely-legal women who flaunt more than they should in the “Girls Gone Wild” videos, it seems that many Americans like to flaunt more prepositions than they should.
When, where, why, and how did American instruction about prepositions go astray?
In particular, why are so many Americans prone to inserting extraneous prepositions into their speech and writing? How did they learn to do this? When and where did this happen? Were they absent that day from school? Did they not get the memo?
A “Prepositions Gone Wild” day is a day that I hear at least two of these phrases:
- “for free”
- “on yesterday”
- “on today”
- “on tomorrow”
- “where at“
Here is a blog post about each of the above phrases:
- “Download it for free.”
- “I saw him on yesterday.”
- “It will start on today.”
- “I’ll bring that to you on tomorrow.”
- “… where it has a scar at now.”
Have you noticed any other common phrases with extraneous prepositions? Please contact me, and I will write about them here!