Kirk Mahoney . com

I heard this yesterday in a conference call.

Problem:
The word “on” does not belong in the sentence.

Explanation:
Someone was asking the conference-call facilitator to forward an email message to someone who was not attending the call. He said, “Please forward that on to him.”

One of the definitions of the preposition “on” is in the direction of, as in “to travel on a northerly course”.

This definition also is the primary definition of the preposition “to”.

Therefore, the preposition “on” did not belong in the conference-call attendee’s sentence.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “forward that to” — 71,600 matches
• “forward that on to” — 26,100 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the expression correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 2.74-to-1, which is dreadful.

Solution:
“Please forward that to him.”

I saw this in an email message this morning.

Problem:
The writer used a past participle where a preposition was required.

Explanation:
The word “passed” — spelled P-A-S-S-E-D — in the expression “it was passed 3:00 pm” is the past participle of the verb “pass”.

The message writer was trying to say in the complete sentence that the time was after 3:00 p.m. when someone saw something.

The word “after” in this context is a preposition.

In other words, the message writer should have used a preposition instead of a past participle, and this preposition should sound like “passed” — spelled P-A-S-S-E-D — and act as a synonym for the preposition “after”.

This gives us the solution. The writer should have used the preposition “past” — spelled P-A-S-T — which means beyond in time.

Solution:
“… it was past 3:00 pm …”

I saw this combination this morning.

Problem:
The preposition “of” should not follow the verb “advised”.

Explanation:
When used as an intransitive verb, “advise” means to offer advice.

This morning I saw a sentence such as “He was advised of the situation.”

If we were to apply the definition of the intransitive verb “advise” to the sentence, we would get “He was offered advice of the situation.”

That would literally mean “He was offered the situation’s advice.”, but the situation itself has no advice.

Instead, the writer of the sentence was trying to say “He was told about the situation.”

This gives us the solution, which is that the intransitive verb “advised” should be followed by the preposition “about” instead of the preposition “of”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following combinations (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “advised of” — 7,480,000 matches
• “advised about” — 136,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the incorrect vs. correct preposition by a ratio of 55-to-1, which is absolutely dreadful.

Solution:
“advised about”

My wife saw this the other day in a seminar handout.

Problem:
The word “apart” — spelled A-P-A-R-T with no spaces — does not belong in this phrase.

Explanation:
The word “apart” as an adverb means into parts or pieces, as in “The tornado blew the house apart.”

The word “apart” can be combined with “from” to form a prepositional idiom that means besides or in addition to, as in “She wrote to no one apart from Jim.”

The word “apart” as an adjective means having unique or independent characteristics and is usually used after the noun that it modifies, as in “an institution apart”.

The word “apart” is NOT a noun, but a noun is what the phrase required, given that the writer was referring to someone not being a member of a group.

Solution:
“… no longer a part of the group”

I heard this at Blockbuster Video over the weekend.

Problem:
The phrase “on next Sunday” did not sound right.

Explanation:
My wife and I were renting a DVD at a local Blockbuster Video store last Saturday evening.

Blockbuster has a seven-day return policy.

I was expecting the Blockbuster sales clerk to say one of the following:

• “The DVD is due on Sunday, June 29.”
• “The DVD is due next Sunday.”

So when I heard her say, “The DVD is due on next Sunday,” I was taken aback and began to wonder why “on next Sunday” was incorrect.

Here is what I realized:

• The clerk wanted to say when the DVD was due.
• Saying when is equivalent to modifying the verb “due” with an adverb or adverbial phrase.
• “Sunday” is a noun.
• One can combine the preposition “on” with the noun “Sunday” to get an adverbial phrase that says when.
• The phrase “next Sunday” is already an adverbial phrase because it says when.
• Therefore, it is a mistake to combine the preposition “on” with the adverbial phrase “next Sunday” in an attempt to get an adverbial phrase.

Solution:
“The DVD is due next Sunday.”

I heard this yesterday from a customer-service agent.

Problems:
1. The question ended on a preposition.
2. The word “back” is a poor substitute for what the agent should have said.

Explanation:
The full question was “Is this a good number to reach you back at?”

The agent wanted to confirm that the telephone number that she had would be a valid number to call in the event of getting disconnected during the current call.

Removing the preposition “at” from the end of the question requires rewording “to reach you … at?” as “at which to reach you …?”; that solves the first problem.

The second problem comes from laziness on the part of the agent. This is obvious when one realizes that “back” was a substitute for “in the event that we get disconnected”. This gives us the solution to the second problem.

Solution:
“… good number at which to reach you in the event that we get disconnected?”

I saw a title in the format of “Blah Blah In Blah” while watching a television program last evening.

Problem:
The preposition “in” should not be capitalized.

Explanation:
Obviously, I don’t recall the “Blah” words.

What I do recall is that the preposition “in” was capitalized in the title.

This is incorrect.

The traditional rule has been that a preposition in a title should not be capitalized unless the preposition is the first or last word in the title.

Some people have refined this rule to say that it’s okay to capitalize prepositions that are five characters long or longer.

I believe that Microsoft Word and other software applications have contributed to the incorrect capitalization of prepositions in titles. Their titling rules usually capitalize each word in a title.

So I don’t recommend relying on these applications for help with proper capitalization of prepositions in titles.

Solution:
“Blah Blah in Blah”

Many people confuse these two words.

Problem:
These two nouns are not synonyms.

Explanation:
A simile is a comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as”.

The origin of the word “simile” is a Latin noun that means likeness.

A metaphor is a comparison that does not use “like” or “as”.

The origin of the word “metaphor” is a Greek verb that means to transfer.

So another way to think of a metaphor is that it acts like a symbol for something else.

Solution:
A comparison is a simile when it involve “like” or “as”; a metaphor never involves either of these prepositions.

I heard this on the radio yesterday.

Problem:
The preposition is incorrect.

Explanation:
One has a debate about something, not on something.

Solution:
“We were debating about that.”

I heard this today on a talk-radio show about gardening.

Problem:
The preposition should not appear in this expression.

Explanation:
The caller who said this was describing a location on her tree to the gardening-show host.

That point on the tree had a scar.

The caller made the common English blunder of applying “where at” — a mistaken way to use “where” — to the location of the tree’s scar.

What’s ironic is that the lady probably thought that “at” helped to clarify or emphasize “where” but instead confused many listeners because “scar at” ran together as “scarrat” — resulting in “… where it has a scarrat now” — leaving us wondering what a “scarrat” was.

Solution:
“… where it has a scar now.”