英语单词大师：What Difference Does a

 AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: prepositions for the perplexed¹.

RS: The other day, our colleague Julie Taboh told us about a friend of hers, a non-native English speaker. It seems he once tried to tell someone that the person should expect to hear from him again. But instead of saying "I'll get back to you," he said "I'll get back at you." The wrong preposition sent the wrong message. To get back at someone means to take revenge.

AA: Julie had no idea that we had just gotten off the phone with a retired² English professor in Canada. David Thatcher³ has written a book called "Saving Our Prepositions: A Guide for the Perplexed." Actually it's an e-book which you can download free of charge at savingourprepositions.com.

RS: David Thatcher says he thinks the misuse⁴ of prepositions is an increasing problem, but it's a problem with a long history.

DAVID THATCHER: "I think it's been pointed⁵ out by grammarians for about two hundred years that people don't know how to use them properly."RS: "Well, what are they?"DAVID THATCHER: "They're a part of speech. Let me give you some examples first and perhaps make it easier for you: around, at, before, past, upward, up, in, on. And their job in a sentence is to link or relate one part of a sentence to another. And so you can see them as the connective tissue of language. If you say 'I went the cinema my friend the evening the twenty-fifth,' it resembles a pile of loose bricks."AA: "It sounds like a text message, actually."DAVID THATCHER: "That's right, for brevity. But when the prepositions are added -- 'I went to the cinema with my friend on the evening of the twenty-fifth' -- the bricks are fastened together."RS: "Why have they been such a problem?"DAVID THATCHER: "I think people, perhaps they don't read as much or they are careless about their use. Let me take an example that you've probably heard of. People now say bored of."AA: "Instead of?"DAVID THATCHER: "Instead of bored -- the older prepositions were bored by or bored with. You see, what will happen is that bored of will probably get established. To people of my generation it sounds wrong, it sounds incorrect."RS: "How do you go about learning the correct use of prepositions?"DAVID THATCHER: "I think one way might be to read the good writers, who will rarely make an error of this kind. And a bad way is to listen to interviews with athletes and sports people or even sports commentators⁶. They are very careless about the way they use these terms. And people just simply copy what they hear."AA: "Now for people learning English, prepositions create a sort of a special challenge because of phrasal verbs and the fact that a term, let's say, like to set up, set down, set aside, all mean completely different things."DAVID THATCHER: "That's right. You just have to learn what the speakers use. The phrasal verb might be to fall out with somebody, which means to quarrel or to disagree. 'I would put up with that' means to tolerate. Or to stand up to somebody is to resist somebody and so on. To turn something down is to refuse. All these have to be learned independently without any rules to guide you."AA: "And then there's also context, because these phrasal verbs tend to be more informal, more casual -- "DAVID THATCHER: "Yes, I think so. And I think one should make the distinction between written and spoken English, so that what would be unacceptable in written English would be perfectly⁷ allowable in speaking."AA: "In a meeting or in a ... "DAVID THATCHER: "A meeting, that's right, or off the cuff⁸. I mean, many of these mistakes occur -- and perhaps I'm being too strict sometimes because people make these mistakes when they're speaking off the cuff, without preparation and so on. But if they're writing, they should have time to think about what they're putting down on paper and to revise it, or to show it to somebody else for a second opinion, and so on and so forth⁹. So there should be ways of eliminating mistakes of this kind.

"Can I ask you a question? Do you say you congratulate somebody on something, or do you congratulate them for something?"AA: "I say on -- yeah. 'Congratulations on your promotion¹⁰'? I mean, that sounds ... "RS: "Congratulations for your promotion?"AA: "I'd say on."DAVID THATCHER: "What you will hear a lot is congratulations for. For is one of these cuckoo prepositions that come in and disturb all the other birds in the nest and knock them away."AA: "Wait, so what do you say?"DAVID THATCHER: "I would say that on is the standard way, but there's no doubt that for is elbowing its way in and might replace on in the course of time. So only time will tell whether on will disappear. And that happens many times, that words that were acceptable at one time have ceased to be so."AA:   David Thatcher in British Columbia, Canada, has written "Saving Our Prepositions: A Guide for the Perplexed." It's a free book that can be downloaded at savingourprepositions.com.

RS:   And that's WORDMASTER for this week -- archived at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble. 

1 perplexed   

adj.不知所措的

参考例句：

• The farmer felt the cow,went away,returned,sorely perplexed,always afraid of being cheated.那农民摸摸那头牛，走了又回来，犹豫不决，总怕上当受骗。
• The child was perplexed by the intricate plot of the story.这孩子被那头绪纷繁的故事弄得迷惑不解。

2 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

3 thatcher   

n.茅屋匠

参考例句：

• Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that bore Judge Thatcher. 汤姆 - 索亚和撒切尔法官同乘一条小艇。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. 撒切尔夫人几乎神经失常，还有波莉姨妈也是。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险

4 misuse   

n.误用，滥用；vt.误用，滥用

参考例句：

• It disturbs me profoundly that you so misuse your talents.你如此滥用自己的才能，使我深感不安。
• He was sacked for computer misuse.他因滥用计算机而被解雇了。

5 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

6 commentators   

n.评论员( commentator的名词复数 )；时事评论员；注释者；实况广播员

参考例句：

• Sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 体育解说员翻来覆去说着同样的词语，真叫人腻烦。
• Television sports commentators repeat the same phrases ad nauseam. 电视体育解说员说来说去就是那么几句话，令人厌烦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

8 cuff   

n.袖口；手铐；护腕；vt.用手铐铐；上袖口

参考例句：

• She hoped they wouldn't cuff her hands behind her back.她希望他们不要把她反铐起来。
• Would you please draw together the snag in my cuff?请你把我袖口上的裂口缝上好吗？

9 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

10 promotion   

n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传

参考例句：

• The teacher conferred with the principal about Dick's promotion.教师与校长商谈了迪克的升级问题。
• The clerk was given a promotion and an increase in salary.那个职员升了级，加了薪。