Essay -- Prepositions: The Woe of the Non-Native Writer

Some problems are universal to all writers, regardless of background or accomplishment. As Daniel points out, even Woolf and Tolstoy suffered from writer's block. Unfortunately, some issues occur more frequently in the writings of certain types of authors. Ardent watchers of television might form brilliant arguments, without the slightest comprehension of paragraph structure or punctuation; speakers of certain dialects have trouble spelling words phonetically. These tendencies more often than not are easily mitigated by simply reading more. For non-native speakers of a language, however, certain problems seem to persist regardless of the volumes of literature consumed. For me and many other non-native speakers of English whose work I've reviewed, prepositions seem to be the most elusive part of speech. Getting those prepositions right generally takes a lot of conscious hard work.

The University of Ottawa website provides us with a useful alphabetized list of prepositions:

about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, but, by, despite, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, out, outside, over, past, since, through, throughout, till, to, toward, under, underneath, until, up, upon, with, within, without.

If you suspect you may have misused one or more of these words in an essay, the Ego4U website is an excellent source for correct preposition use. It lists prepositions according to their function (place, time, etc). Usually you will get a straightforward solution for your preposition dilemma ("on Monday"; "in winter").

Other times, preposition use is slightly more complex. Say you want to meet your friend before a workout. Do you say, "See you at the gym" or "See you in the gym"? Both sound about right. Ego4U suggests using at for a "place where you are about to do something typical", and in for a room or building. A gym can be both. In this case, the situation must be contextualized. If you are talking to a friend who is a regular workout partner about your next weights session, say "see you at the gym". If, however, you have given directions to a person who is not familiar with the gym, and the gym for them is a generic room or a building, say "see you in the gym".

Prepositions. Oi