My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

I
T
’
S BEHIND YOU
! (
OR
, P
REPOSITIONS
)
The word preposition means ‘something that is placed before’. Prepositions are
usually placed before nouns or pronouns. It’s their job to show where one thing is
in position to another, i.e. The cat is on the mat, I was in front of you. Expressions
such  as  in  front  of,  out  of  and  the  like,  made  up  of  more  than  one  word,  are
known (to the in-crowd) as complex prepositions.
If you are unsure what a preposition is, you might like to employ the following
sentence:

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The squirrel ran ——— the tree.
All you have to do is fill in the missing word. Almost any word you choose will
be a preposition. For example:
to
down under near
by
up
off
along
around past
in
through
for
acrossbehindin
front
of
throughover from
out of
Even at , with and after would fit – if this particular squirrel is suicidal or we’re
in some sort of dream sequence. Others, such as of, between and before , do not
fit at all here, but you get the point.
For non-native speakers prepositions can be tricky. I get down off the bus tells us
exactly what the person is doing, but most native speakers would make do with I
get off the bus . However, even native speakers often think that two prepositions
are better than one:
I get off of the bus.     What’s that of doing there?
Put that back down on the table.
I took a day off from work.
Sometimes even one is too many:
Where did he go to ?
She admitted to her mistakes.
All of the people present at the rally protested peacefully.
I’m going down south.
Smart Alec: The use of more words than are necessary is pleonasm or prolixity .

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