Re: those irregular prepositions

On 21/06/06, Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On 6/20/06, Yahya Abdal-Aziz <yahya@...> wrote:
> > In English, we say:
> > * at night
> > * at nightfall
> > * at nighttime
> > * at dusk
> > * at dawn
> > * at noon
>
> > * at the weekend
>
> That last one sounds very odd to me; it's certainly nothing I would
> ever emit.  I'd say "on the weekend" or "during the weekend".
I think it's a British vs American difference. I don't do it, and it's
jarring whenever I hear/read someone else doing it. (_The Age_, a
Melburnian newspaper, is the worst offender in this regard, but one of
my Aunts also says it way too frequently for good health. Certainly
amongst my peers "on --" or "over the weekend" is normal.)

This makes me think: Why is it jarring if adults who speak my dialect
and aren't of a noticeably different socio-economic status, just a
different age, do it? I mean, in the beginning I obviously learnt my
language of people older than me. Shouldn't it just strike me as odd,
as something people significantly older than me might do, but not my
peers? Yet it sounds as ungrammatical as "at New Zealand"... When do
we learn such things?

--
Tristan.

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