Informal Use of Prepositions

When we speak English we often end sentences with prepostions at the end of our sentences. When we write informally inEnglish--letters, emails, simple how-to's, we also end sentences with prepositions.

Yet in the most formal English, sentences never end with a prepostion. Why is there such a big difference?

Many times some words are automatically understood without being said. For instance in sentences that are commands, the word you is not needed because the subject you is understood:

Sit down.

Have some pie.

Go to sleep.

In each of the above cases, the subject of the sentence, you, is understood and so need not be said.

In THAN/AS CONSTRUCTIONS the same thing is happening. Words that are understood are not said:

In "Dragons are scarier than orgres" the verb and predicate adjective are already understood. "Dragons are scarier than ogres are scary."

In "My flying carpet flies higher than yours" the word yours is understood to replace your flying carpet flies. "My flying carpet flies higher than your flying carpet flies."

As you can see, repeating all the words all the time can be boring. Leaving out words that you know the reader or listener already understands makes communicating easier and faster.

Informal speech and writing is about easy to understand and fast communication.

Formal speech and writing is about precise, detailed, and complete communication.

In formal English, every prepostion must have its object to complete and detail the prepositional's meaning and use in the sentence.

In informal English, frequently the object of the prepostion is already understood and so need not be stated.

As has been explained in PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES, prepostional phrases serve as adjectives or adverbs. As adverbs, prepositional phrases often describe the verb. They describe the verb by telling when, where, how, or why. This information in informal English is often already known.

The following sets of sentences show why obects of prepostions are often already understood.

When the bus comes, you get in it to ride it.

When the bus came, the tourist asked, "Does this bus go to Miami Beach?"

The bus driver said, "Get in."

In this set of sentences, the sentence "Get in" relies on knowing that one gets in the bus.

The child had invited a friend to come over to her house to play, but her friend had not arrived yet.

The child called her friend and said, "Susie, are you coming over?"

In "Susie, are you coming over?" the object of the prepositon "over" is understood to be "her house."

Tom needed to swim by the cyclops to get the shore.

"Excuse me," said Tom, "but I need to get by."

In "but I need to get by" the object of the preposition, "you [the cyclops]" is already understood.

As these sets of sentences show, when it is already clear what the object of the prepostion is, then the object of the preposition is not restated in informal English.

In informal English, a prepostional phrase can be inverted, have the object come first,

when the prepositon itself has to be stressed for quick and easy understanding. For instance:

The small faun picked up a snake he found on the ground.

His mother, who did not like snakes said, "Put the snake down!"

In "Put the snake down!" the prepositional phrase is inverted. The word "snake" is the object of the prepostion '"down." Inverting the prepositional phrase allows the word "down'" to be emphasized.

Here is one more example of a prepostion coming at the end of the sentence because the rest of the sentence, the object of the prepostion, is already understood:

The small faun ran around all the trees and plants in the yard.

The faun's father asked the mother, "What is our little faun doing?"

The mother answered, "Running around."

In "Running around" the object, "all the trees and plants," of the prepostion "around" is already undertood.

Remember that the predicate of a sentence is the complete verb plus all of its modifiers. In informal English a verb is often followed by a prepostion, but the preposition has no object with it. The object has either been moved to another part of the sentence or is simply not stated. The prepostion and its unstated (or moved) object are working as adverbs describing the verb and so are part of the predicate.

It is very difficult to write fully, precisely, and in detail, as required by formal English, but if you learn to do so, speaking and writing informally becomes even more fast and easy.

This grammar information is provided courtesy of Oestara Publishing LLC.

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