Prepositions

Definition

• A preposition shows the relationship between its object (the object of the preposition) and another word in the sentence. Prepositions show relationships such as time (before, during, after), space (in, on, beside, around), direction (to, from, toward), and many others. The preposition like, for example, shows similarity: The cloud looks like a frog.

Prepositional phrases

• In the boat• On the dock• Around Venus• Over the rainbow

What is the object of each preposition? What is the preposition?

Prepositions have power

Would you rather have a thousand-dollar check for you, or a

thousand-dollar check from you?

From the Wind in the Willows

The rat only snorted and thrust his hands deep

into his pockets.

Do you see the prepositional phrase?

Punctuating introductory prepositional phrases

• When a prepositional phrase is at the beginning of a sentence, such as From the beginning I liked macaroni, we put a comma after the phrase if it is a long phrase, usually five words or more, and we put a comma after multiple phrases, but we do not put a comma after a short two or three-word prepositional phrase unless we need to far clarity.

Right From the back of the auditorium, we could not hear him.

Right Like a blinding lightning bolt, the electric cable exploded.

Right For my part I do not want rutabaga.

Wrong In 1916, the state of the world shifted.

Never end a sentence with a preposition?

• We deplore such a sentence as “Where are you at?” because the meaning of the preposition is incomplete. We want the speaker to finish the idea: Where are you, at home? Where are you, at work? We want the speaker to omit the superfluous preposition: “Where are are you?”

• “Who is the present for?” would probably not jar the ear of an educated speaker.

Winston Churchill would not put up with this. After a civil servant criticized his ending a sentence with a preposition, his response was:

This is the sort of pedantry, up

with which I will not put!