Prepositions

Prepositions are a class of words that indicate relationships between nouns, pronouns and other words in a sentence. Most often they come before a noun.

The good news is that they never change their form, regardless of the case, gender etc. of the word they are referring to.

Prepositions are classified as simple or compound.

Simple prepositions are single word prepositions - across, after, at, before, between, by, during, from, in, into, of, on, to, under, with and without are all single word prepositions.

For example:-

• The book is on the table.

Compound prepositions are more than one word - in between and because of - are prepositions made up of two words - in front of, on behalf of - are prepositions made up of three words.

For example:-

• The book is in between War and Peace and The Lord of the Rings.
• The book is in front of the clock.

You may have learned that ending a sentence with a preposition is a serious breach of grammatical etiquette. It doesn't take a grammarian to spot a sentence-ending preposition, so this is an easy rule to get caught up on (!). Although it is often easy to remedy the offending preposition, sometimes it isn't, and repair efforts sometimes result in a clumsy sentence. "Indicate the book you are quoting from" is not greatly improved with "Indicate from which book you are quoting."

Based on shaky historical precedent, the rule itself is a latecomer to the rules of writing. Those who dislike the rule are fond of recalling Churchill's rejoinder: "That is nonsense up with which I shall not put." We should also remember the child's complaint: "What did you bring that book that I don't like to be read to out of up for?"