“He escaped prison.”

Devolution toward Simpler, Prepositions, Verbs

I heard this recently during a TV news broadcast.

Problem:
A preposition is missing.

Explanation:
The news broadcaster made the statement “He escaped prison.” while describing a prisoner who had managed to illegally free himself from a prison.

But the verb “escape” means to get away, or to gain or regain freedom.

So “He escaped prison.” literally means any of these:

  • “He got away prison.”
  • “He gained freedom prison.”
  • “He regained freedom prison.”

Any of these sentences reveals to us the preposition that is missing from “He escaped prison.”

I believe that this omission is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to omit the required preposition than to include it.

And this blog post illustrates a simple method for discovering whether a preposition is missing, excessive, or just right. The method entails simply rewriting the sentence or phrase or expression with the definition of the verb in place of the verb.

Solution:
“He escaped from prison.”