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From on high
Robert
553 Posts
(Offline)
1
2013/09/16 - 8:16am
A most curious construction: 2 prepositions and an adjective yielding an adjectival phrase:
 A view of the education system from on high.
 
Or an adverbial phrase:
From on high, the landscape becomes great swaths of green and yellow.
 
Is it 'standard' English? Is it one of a kind, or are there others like it?

 

EmmettRedd
859 Posts
(Offline)
2
2013/09/16 - 12:30pm

After this weekend, I don't have the mental fortitude to indicate whether the following is adjectival, but what about: I thought 50% off of the regular price was a good deal. I hear things like that all of the time (and probably say it too), but leaving out the 'of' does not change the meaning.

Emmett

Guest
3
2013/09/16 - 6:43pm

I think "from on high" is a phrase inside of a phrase.   "On high" is a prepositional phrase used as an object of the preposition "from."   You can see or do things "from" all kinds of places:   "from outside my house," "from over the table," "from under the car," "from inside my head," etc. "About" can also be used this way but I can't think of as many examples.   One is, "I am not talking about the kitchen, I am talking about outside of the house"   (There's one with three in a row.) "of the house" is a phrase used as a noun and it is the object of "outside."   "Outside of the house" is a phrase used as a noun and it is the object of "about."   This may be questionable since "of" could be eliminated.   There are probably other prepositions that could be used this way but they don't immediately come to mind.   Speaking of my mind, this is making it tired.   I hope something I said is right.

Ron Draney
721 Posts
(Offline)
4
2013/09/17 - 1:00am

EmmettRedd said

I thought 50% off of the regular price was a good deal. I hear things like that all of the time (and probably say it too), but leaving out the 'of' does not change the meaning.

The Brits think it does. In fact, they think "off of" is a grammatical error. This topic often comes up when people from the US and the UK talk about the song "Can't Take My Eyes Off You". That's the official title, but both the Lettermen and Frankie Valli sang it as "...Off Of You". Across the Atlantic, Kiki Dee and Engelbert Humperdinck each sang the word "off" as two syllables.

Philippine-born singer Wang Fei came up with his own solution. While his arrangement of the tune closely follows Valli's, the title comes out as "Can't Take My Eyes Over You".

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