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

Don’t let’s ask for the moon
Many prepositions are firmly wedded to other words:
I approve of his choice.
They’re discriminating against women .
However, others are more loosely connected:
When I want your opinion I’ll
ask for it
… but I might ask after your health.
They’ve taken in everything
you said to them
… but she’s taken off everything
except her feather boa.
You are good at what you do
… which is better than being good for
nothing.
Some prepositions cause us to get our knickers in rather a twist:
absorbed in/by
I was absorbed in my book .
All of a sudden I was absorbed by a giant vacuum cleaner.
agree with/approve of
I agree with your ideas.
But I don’t approve of children being taught grammar.
aim at/to/for
Aim at that target.
Aim to arrive at work before lunchtime.
Aim for Paris and try to fly in a straight line.
among/between
I put the cat among the (many) pigeons with my thoughtless comment.
I placed a pigeon between my two cats to see what would happen.

---

bored of
Wrong. We should be bored by or bored with something or somebody.
centre around/on
How can something centre around something else? Presumably it would need to
centre around another centre. Something centres on something – or is based  on
it.
compare with/to
You can’t compare my feet to an elephant’s: they are too dissimilar to be compared.
Compared with an elephant’s, my feet look dainty.
different to/from/than
Oh, don’t get us started. Most manuals of British English dismiss different than
on the basis that than is used in comparatives and different is not a comparative.
Fair enough, even though many  speakers  of  American  English  would  disagree.
But what about different to/from? Well, many books claim that different from is
preferable  without  explaining  why,  which  is  incredibly  pompous  and  irrational
and  frankly  just  makes  us  want  to  scream  But  WHY?  However,  the  wonderful
Fowler’s Modern English Usage (the 1937 edition, so it’s not heavily influenced
by  computer-speak  or  Friends  )  says:  ‘That  different  can  only  be  followed  by
from & not by to is a
SUPERSTITION
. Not only is to “found in writers of all ages”
(OED); the principle on which it is rejected (You do not say differ to; therefore
you cannot say different to) involves a hasty & ill-defined generalization.’ Isn’t
that wonderful? Fowler’s great.
*28
All of which is a long-winded way of saying
that you can say (and write) different to if you like.