Today I am talking about three words which are mostly used as prepositions or adverbial particles, and today they will be used as prepositions. For more on ‘used as’, see below, “more complicated” stuff).
The three words are across, along and through, but before I talk about them, I want to talk about dimensions. Choice of preposition often depends on dimension.
Dimensions: at, on, in
0/1 dimension
0 dimension is like a dot on a map.
1 dimension is like a line.
- Where’s Sarah today?
She’s at the office.
(Sarah’s office is five miles away: it’s a dot on a map for him)
2 dimensions
2 dimensions is for a surface, like a wall or a ceiling, or a desk.
- Where is the report I asked for?
It’s on your desk.
(The top of the desk is a flat surface)
3 dimensions
3 dimensions is for a box, like a house or a city or a pocket.
- Do you know where Sarah is?
Yes, she’s in her office.
(Sarah’s office is 3 metres away; we’re standing outside it)
Here’s a a video.
But of course it’s more complicated than that. Language is not exactly about reality, it is about how we look at reality (see below, “more complicated . . .”).
At, on and in are about location; along, across and through are about movement.
Along
Along is about movement in 1 dimension: length.
So we walk along a road, or a corridor. The corridor is three dimensional, but we are only interested in one of the dimensions: the length.
Across
Across is about 2 dimensions: length and width.
So we walk across the garden (from one side to the other). or across a room. The room has three dimensions, but we are only interested in two of them: the floor which we are walking across.
Through
Through is about three dimensions: length, width and height.
So we drive through a tunnel, we go through a doorway. We are seeing the tunnel as a three dimensional place, and all three dimensions – the length, the width and the height, are important to us. So we go through it.
But of course, “ it’s more complicated than that . . .”.
Notes on the “more complicated” stuff
“Used as”
English is a hybrid language, with very little gender marking or conjugations, and almost no declensions. This makes it a very flexible language, and the same word can be used in different ways; it is often hard to know what a word is – noun or verb? preposition or particle? – until it is used in a sentence. That’s the interesting question: how is a word being used?
Focus
Reality has many aspects: which one are we focussing on? Suppose I am focussing on where I live, I can say:
- I live in Qatar.
Qatar is a city; it’s a big place, with three dimensions. I am inside it, it surrounds me, and I use in.
But supposing I am focussing on a journey from London to Australia?
We stopped at Qatar on the way to Sidney to refuel.
Qatar is now a dot on a map in my mind, and I use at. Your choice of dimension may be about the thing itself, or it may be about how you see it.
Jobs
What’s the job of a [word used as a] preposition? Don’t forget it often does a job as a particle in a phrasal verb. When it’s used as a preposition, it usually goes before a noun or a noun phrase, and adds some general meaning. Here are three of the most common areas of meaning, but there are more:
Location: position, movement: at, on in; above below; over, under; across along through . . .
Time: clocks, dates, time of day: at, on, in, by, from, to, until . . .
Reason: connection, purpose . . . with, by, for, through . . .
Metaphors
We use metaphors all the time:
Life is a journey.
Dealing with the coronavirus is a war.
Education is building.
Metaphors are a useful shorthand to express what we mean vividly and dramatically, and they are often used with prepositions and particles, where the metaphor is often a journey, or a move of some kind::
He got through the operation
He came across some problems on the way.
After his illness, he’s coming along very well, considering everything.
A final word about metaphors: they are vivid and helpful to convey an idea, but they only work up to a point and can be dangerous. Here’s an example: education, in my view, is not much like a building; it’s more like a jigsaw puzzle, where we fit the pieces together in an unpredictable order, and they do not form a structure. Yet we often describe education as if it were a structure. Use metaphors carefully! That’s all for now!
© Shepherd School of English