And how can we ruin them?
Prepositions are used every day in the things you say and write, and they are useful devices that classify the relationship between a noun and some other word. They are also one of the eight important parts of speech used in the English language. Prepositions are usually placed before the noun or pronoun, and examples of common prepositions include at, in, on, around, above, and near.
If you get confused about what a preposition is and how you can use it, remember that a preposition describes the what, where, or how of a noun. Here are some simple examples of using the preposition “up.”
“The branch of the tree swayed on the water”
“The plane flew above the clouds”
Are you an expert in prepositions? Here’s another set of examples that use the preposition “between.”
“The rabbit sat between two logs.”
“I stood between the columns”
End a sentence with a preposition
Preposition errors are not very common for native English speakers because they become obvious if the grammar rules of basic English are broken. For the rabbit example above, it would be a rare mistake to see something like “The rabbit sat two logs between.” However, many people tend to make the mistake of ending a sentence with the preposition “of.”
Take the following sentence, for example:
“There are several things to keep in mind.”
This is a preposition at the end of the sentence and, while it is not considered a serious grammatical error, many refer to this as a “stranded preposition” and the alternative would be the following:
“There are several things to keep in mind.”
While the first sentence may cause your grammar check to scold you, the second version sounds very formal for normal conversation. The origin of the rule that a preposition must come before a noun is found in the origins of the word “preposition”, which is made up of “pre” and “position”.
Imagine, right?
The key to good writing is that you should try to modify your voice and tone in your writing and make sure it suits your audience. If you’re writing a casual blog post or even sales copy, overly formal language like the passage above can put your readers off.
Obviously, there are some situations where putting a preposition at the end of a sentence really sounds very bad. Most people who use English on a daily basis can avoid this pitfall, and because of the odd possibility of putting the word “of” at the end of a sentence, that’s probably not a cause for concern.
