Chapter 76: Prepositions and Other Things

Conversation between two passengers, A and B, during a train journey.

A. Excuse me, but now that you seem to have finished using your mobile telephone, perhaps we could have a word.

B. About what?

A. Your use of language.

B. So you’ve been earwigging, have you?

A. I think eavesdropping expresses your meaning less colloquially, but I could hardly avoid hearing what you said. You were speaking loudly enough to obviate the need for a telephone on your part.

B. Never mind that. What’s wrong with the way I talk?

A. Among other things, I think you should consider the way you deal with prepositions.

B. Explain.

A. You mentioned to your contact that you were on the train, that you would later be on the bus, and that you had been working on your laptop. At another point you asked him to slow up a bit.

B. So?

A. It would have been more accurate to say that you were in the train, that you would later be in the bus and that you had been working at your laptop, or perhaps with it. As for the speed, one slows down, not up.

B. Would you care to go through all that again, and make it a bit clearer?

A. Certainly. You could hardly be on the train, bus or laptop. It would be very difficult for you to get onto the train or bus unless you had a ladder. You would get into those vehicles. Also you could not use your laptop if you were on it. Finally, you would never speak of speeding down, so slowing up should be avoided.

B. That’s just the way most people talk.

A. No doubt, but it is careless.

B. What about the Internet. Will you allow me to be on that?

A. Yes.

B. Why?

A. Because it can be regarded as somewhat analogous to other infrastructure systems, such as roads or railways. It’s perfectly all right to be on them.

B. Very kind of you to give permission. Anything else?

A. Yes. At one stage in your discussion, you said that you had met up with Simon.

B. That’s right. Something you don’t like about that as well, is there?

A. I was disturbed by the pleonasm.

B. Meaning what?

A. Redundancy of words. It would have been sufficient to say that you met Simon. The ‘up’ and ‘with’ are unnecessary.

A. Have you finished?

A. Not quite. You also said that on hearing the result of a football match, you were literally over the Moon.

B. And you find something amiss with that too, right?

A. Yes. Unless you were a NASA astronaut involved in the Apollo missions, which your accent and apparent age indicate is unlikely, you could not have been literally over the Moon.

B. Pardon me, Mr Faultfinder, but I happen to know that the Oxford English Dictionary accepts that word in the sense in which I used it. I believe the term is figurative.