# I love prepositions!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 10, 2012, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358 "2012-04-10T10:05:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/1 "2012-04-10T10:05:20Z")
You can go in for something. You can go out with someone. You can go down on someone. Go up?
You can’t do that.
You can _ **get up** _. You can get down. You can get in. You can get out! You can get over, but you can’t get under.
You can’t do that.
You can take in a relative, and take him out for take-out. He may take over your life, but he won’t take under, because you can’t do that.
If you want to do that, you’ll have to undertake. But you still can’t underget.
Understand?
You can come up with something. You can come down with something. You can come before me. You can come after me. You can come up, and sooner or later you’re gonna come down. You can come over, and come across.
But you can’t come under.
You can’t do that.
You can see into it. You can see out of it, on a clear day. You can see about it. You can see through it. If you’re really good, you can see around it. You can see to it, but you can’t see from it.
You can’t do that.
If you want to do that, you’ll have to see it from here.
You can make up, but you can’t make down.
You can make over, but you can’t make under.
You can make out, but you can’t make in.
You can make with, and you can make do, but you can’t make without.
You’ll have to do without instead.
Did you get it? Well, I had it. But I would have to have gotten it.
Nobody’s pluperfect.
---
### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/2 "2012-04-10T15:17:23Z")
> [@brujaja](#):
>
> You can go in for something. You can go out with someone. You can go down on someone. Go up?
> You can’t do that.
Really? I’ve been thinking I’d go up to NYC for the day – guess I can’t. ☹
---
### Author:  [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/3 "2012-04-10T16:53:36Z")
> [@brujaja](#):
>
> Go up?
> You can’t do that.
Then what was happening on all those trips when I would go up to Vermont?
Or when I would go up the stairs? Or the ladder.
Very often I would go up to someone to ask them a question.
Sure you can do that.
---
### Author:  [@TheChileanBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheChileanBlob)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/4 "2012-04-10T16:59:10Z")
What did you bring that book I didn’t want to be read to out of up for?
---
### Author:  [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/5 "2012-04-10T17:19:29Z")
Not to spoil the mood or anything, but you’re actually just using phrasal verbs, which don’t count as prepositions because they’re not positioned before anything. They also don’t need objects. This is, I’m told, the hardest thing for non-English speakers to master about our language.
Anyway,
You can look up my number to call me over to look over your paper, assuming you’re too tired from calling after your kids and looking out for their best interests. If you lose the paper, you’ll have to look around for it. If it’s still lost, you’ll have to call in reinforcements to look for it. If I find a typo, I’ll make you look up the right spelling. So look out for carelessness, or you’ll get called out on your mistakes.
---
### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/6 "2012-04-10T17:22:19Z")
> [@brujaja](#):
>
> ]
> You can _ **get up** _. You can get down. You can get in. You can get out! You can get over, but you can’t get under.
> You can’t do that.
Sure you can. Never heard the aphorism that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone?
> [@](#):
>
> But you can’t come under.
> You can’t do that.
You can come under fire. You can come under criticism. Etc.
---
### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/7 "2012-04-10T17:22:30Z")
“You up for getting a couple of beers?”
“Yeah, I’m down for that.”
😕
---
### Author:  [@ToeJam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToeJam)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/8 "2012-04-10T20:14:03Z")
“Anything a bunny can do to a log” was the rule ingrained into my head in 7th grade for Prepositions.
Why they chose to taught it to us that way, I have NO idea. But I still find myself checking anytime- “Is it a preposition- hmmm, can a bunny do it to a log?”
---
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/9 "2012-04-10T20:22:21Z")
Well actually, I was playing with the fact that they are phrasal verbs, which can more or less be used alone without an object. I actually considered saying something like, “you can come under, but only under certain circumstances involving an object.” But it seemed to disrupt the flow.
**pulykamell:** Ha ha! No, I never heard that!! But it’s just the kind of thing I would say all the time, if I’d thought of it! I am so gonna use that now!
I do however have a phrase I use to describe a certain type of philandering mate: the kind of person that can’t get off unless they’re getting over.
---
### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/10 "2012-04-10T20:25:17Z")
“Go up” is theater speak for forgetting your lines, also. You absolutely can _go up_. I’ve done it many times.
Not as many times as I’ve gone down, though.
---
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/11 "2012-04-10T20:28:28Z")
It was meant as humor, btw. The whole time I was writing it, I was hearing it in George Carlin’s voice, with his wonderful timing.
---
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/12 "2012-04-10T20:29:44Z")
**KneadToKnow:** I did not know that. Uh-oh. There goes my whole premise! 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/13 "2012-04-10T20:34:40Z")
I’ll give you a million dollars to sleep with me.
Oh I’m sorry, I thought you said _propositions_.
---
### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/14 "2012-04-10T20:53:53Z")
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> Oh I’m sorry, I thought you said _propositions_.
Um, yeah, I’m going to need to see the money first.
---
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/15 "2012-04-10T22:12:16Z")
Hey, I fell asleep on the bus once, on my way to work. I woke up with my head on some stranger’s shoulder. He didn’t give me any money!
---
### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/16 "2012-04-10T22:43:54Z")
> [@Skammer](#):
>
> I’ll give you a million dollars to sleep with me.
>
> Oh I’m sorry, I thought you said _propositions_.
This reminds me of the prostitute who was arrested and attempted to get out of jail time by offering her services gratis to the judge. Being a former English teacher, he of course chastized her for trying to end her sentence with a preposition.
While still a teacher, he had done a stint in the Peace Corps in which he was the tutor to a youthful absolute monarch, who was called on to pronounce and execute the traditional sentence against some rebels: death by disembowelment. The teacher flunked him for the day, for ending their sentence with a semicolon.
---
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/17 "2012-04-10T23:03:32Z")
Aaaarghh!
---
### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/18 "2012-04-10T23:17:04Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#):
>
> Not to spoil the mood or anything, but you’re actually just using phrasal verbs, which don’t count as prepositions because they’re not positioned before anything. They also don’t need objects. This is, I’m told, the hardest thing for non-English speakers to master about our language.
Hindered, no doubt by the continued insistence of some to refer to them as phrasal verbs when they are neither phrases nor verbs. They’re verbs with a prepositon, which in English can certainly be postpositioned.
---
### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/19 "2012-04-10T23:22:21Z")
Better to be pissed off than pissed on.
---
### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358/20 "2012-04-10T23:56:42Z")
Is that what they call a "piss-take?’
Cause if you’re attempting to take up a take-down, I’m’a take off.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-love-prepositions/618358.md?page=2)