Are you confused by Prepositions? Prepositions can be mystifying. This article will solve the mystery.

Figuring out nouns and verbs is sort of simple. A  noun is a person, place or thing. A verb is an action or state of being. So, why are prepositions so confusing?

One reason is: prepositions can play several different roles in a sentence. They can explain a noun (act as an adjective) Or they can explain a verb (act as an adverb). Prepositions  don’t always do the same thing in a sentence.

No wonder we get confused. We hope this post will help.

Content of Post

• What is a preposition
• A word of caution about prepositions
• List of prepositions
• 3 tips for using prepositions
• TRY THIS FUN EXERCISE.

What are Prepositions?

A preposition shows the relationship between its object and another word in the sentence. Prepositions are used to specify; when, where, how, and why.

Prepositions are usually part of a prepositional phrase. We call it a prepositional phrase because a preposition needs a noun (object) to make sense. The noun completes the phrase.

Example:  Up the street              

   Up is the preposition, while street is the noun.

 Over the garage            Over is the preposition while Garage is the noun.

Other descriptive words can be added between the preposition and the noun.

Example: Behind the red barn. Behind is the preposition, while barn is the noun. Red describes the barn.

 Inside the large box. Inside is the preposition, while box is the noun.

Large describes the box.

So now, do you understand what a preposition is?

There are no rules in English about how many prepositional phrases can be put in a single sentence.

A Word of Caution

You don’t want to confuse your reader. Sometimes, writers will use long strings of prepositional phrases.

A Czech writer, Bohumil Hrabal, once wrote a novel containing a single sentence. (Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age).

Obviously, this can make reading difficult.

You have a choice when editing. You can break up sentences with several prepositional phrases into two or more sentences, or you could delete some of the prepositional phrases. It is important to write so that the reader is not confused by too many prepositional phrases.

First, you need to recognize a preposition. Here is a list of the most common prepositions.

List of One-Word Prepositions:

About	Above	Across	After	Against
Along	Among	Around	alongside	Amid
At	Before	Behind	Below	Beneath
Beside	Between	Beyond	But	By
Down	Despite	During	Except	For
From	In	Into	Inside	Less
Like	near	nearer	Of	Off
On	Onto	Opposite	Out	Outside
Over	Past	Plus	Save	Since
Short	Since	To	Toward	Than
Through	Throughout	Till	Under	Underneath
Until	Unlike	Upon	Unto	Upside
Versus	With	Without	Within	Worth

 Two-word prepositions

We hope this is not too confusing. But some prepositions are a combination of two or three words.

According to	Apart from	Aside from	Back to	Because of
Close to	Due to	Far from	Except for	Instead of
Across from	Ahead of	Along Side	Apart from	Along With
As for	Aside from	Back to	Because of	Down on
Except for	Far from	Inside of	Instead of	Left of
Near to	Next to	Opposite of	Opposite to	Other than
Rather than	Out of	Outside of	Owing to	Prior
Regardless of	Right of	Such as	Thanks to	Up to

Some three-word prepositions

As far as	As soon as	As well as	As opposed to	By virtue of
In accordance with	In addition to	In case of	In order to	By means of
/For lack of	For lack of	In addition to	For want of	In case of
In front of	In place of	In spite of	On account of	On behalf of
On top of	With regard to	With Respect to	In view of

Two or three-word prepositions can act together as a single word in the propositional phrase.

For a more information, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_prepositions

3 Tips For Using Prepositions.

Tip #1: A prepositional phrase can act as an adjective.

This may seem complicated, but stay with me. These are a few things to keep in mind.

Remember, adjectives describe nouns or pronouns. As an adjective, the phrase will describes ‘which one’. 

Example: The girl in the blue dress. The Prepositional phrase tells us which girl.

Another example is the building across the street. This propositional phrase tells which building.

Are you Catching on?

Tip #2: A prepositional phrase can act as an adverb.

Remember, adverbs describe verbs. A phrase used as an adverb will tell us – how – where – or when.

Example. Joe ran between his home and school. (Where)

A different Example: Joe ran in the morning. (When)

One more Example: Joe ran with an injured foot. (How)

Each example describes something about the verb ‘ran’.

Sometimes the noun in a prepositional phrase seems to be the logical subject of the sentence. That is NEVER so. This becomes important when deciding if the subject is singular or plural, so you know if the verb should be singular or plural.

Example: Neither of the runners won the race.

Runners is plural, but not the subject of the sentence. It is part of a prepositional phrase starting with of. Neither is singular and the actual subject of the sentence. So, the verb won should be singular.

Example: Kate, along with her sisters, enjoyed the dance.

Sisters (plural) is part of the prepositional phrase starting with along, so the verb must remain singular. Kate, not sisters, is the subject of the sentence.

Did you get that?  Are you ready? Try our EXERCISE. It’s easier than you think.

For more examples, check out: https://www.examples.com/education/examples-prepositional-phrases.html.

Conclusion

We hope this post has helped improve your understanding of prepositions.

We all are striving to be better writers. With practice, you can become a masterful author. You don’t need to know everything immediately. Give yourself time to get there.

Putting your thoughts and feelings on a blank page can be intimidating. But, there is something magical about the prospect of having your words read by thousands. Only you can make it happen.

 Has this post been helpful? Have you had difficulty understanding prepositions in the past? Tell us about it in the comments.

Try This Preposition Exercise 

 Remember, I said there are no rules for how many prepositional phrases you can put in a single sentence.

This exercise should be fun. Write a single sentence with as many prepositional phrases as you can think of. It may not be great writing, but you can laugh while creating an interesting sentence!

Here’s my Example: The farmhouse is down the road, over a rickety bridge across the brook, around the bend, past the red barn beside the road, behind the general store between the two oak trees, beneath the cliff, near the base of the mountain, past the first stream, but before the second stream, which floods during heavy rain.

Now you try it!

Give us your exercise in the comments. 

Happy Writing, 

John & Patty  @writingagreatbook.com 2018

Claim your List of 27 Crutch Words Today

One trick we use when editing is to look for crutch words. These words are so common we don’t think anything about writing them. We look for these 27 words with every edit.

By deleting or changing these words, our writing becomes stronger.

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