{"id":208,"date":"2008-04-20T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2008-04-20T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/i-saw-him-on-yesterday\/"},"modified":"2011-05-31T18:18:44","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T00:18:44","slug":"i-saw-him-on-yesterday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/04\/i-saw-him-on-yesterday\/","title":{"rendered":"“I saw him on yesterday.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hear this type of grammatical error too frequently.<\/p>\n

Problem:<\/strong>
\nAs I have written about “today” and “tomorrow” (both adverbs), “yesterday” is an adverb, so preceding it with the preposition “on” is incorrect.<\/p>\n

Explanation:<\/strong>
\n“Yesterday” already tells you when<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For example, the answer to “When did they start to paint the house?” could be “They started to paint the house yesterday<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

In contrast, “Tuesday” is a proper noun, not an adverb, so the answer to “When did they start to paint the house?” could be “They started to paint the house on Tuesday<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

In other words, the days of the week, which are proper nouns, require the “on” preposition to tell you when, whereas “yesterday” already tells you when.<\/p>\n

Solution:<\/strong>
\n“I saw him yesterday.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hear this type of grammatical error too frequently. Problem: As I have written about “today” and “tomorrow” (both adverbs), “yesterday” is an adverb, so preceding it with the preposition “on” is incorrect. Explanation: “Yesterday” already tells you when. For example, the answer to “When did they start to paint the house?” could be “They…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adverbs","category-common-english-blunders","category-prepositions"],"yoast_head":"\n"I saw him on yesterday." - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/04\/i-saw-him-on-yesterday\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""I saw him on yesterday." - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I hear this type of grammatical error too frequently. 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