"On" internet or "In" internet?

Discussion in 'Linguistics' started by Saint, Aug 15, 2011.

  1. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    No. No one is "in" the internet. You might know someone "from" the internet.
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    No. One of the most difficult aspects of English for a foreign student is our tiny set of prepositions.

    They have very little meaning. This is obvious because if you use the wrong one, 99% of the time no one will have any trouble understanding your sentence. I have often said that the only purpose of prepositions is to help us identify foreigners.

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    They are inadequate for their purpose of expressing a relationship between two things. Most of them are inherited from the Stone Age. Unlike nouns and verbs English has no mechanism for creating new prepositions, so very few have been invented since the Stone Age. Behind, against, without, into... there are a few, but only a few.

    Out of frustration we've pressed other words into service as DIY-prepositions.
    • Absent (an adjective) any disagreement from our attorneys, we will go ahead with the plan.
    • I wrote the company a letter regarding (a verb) our problem with their product.
    Most amazingly, in the last century we created a new kind of word, the noun-adjective compound. This eliminates prepositions entirely and opens up our entire lexicon of adjectives for the description of relationships.
    • A user-friendly interface.
    • An energy-efficient appliance.
    • A cable-ready TV set.
    • A labor-intensive project.
    A few words of this type had been coined in the past, such as praiseworthy and germ-free, but in the past few decades there has been an avalanche of these coinages.

    My point is that our prepositions are so useless and confusing that even we hate them and are aggressively replacing them! So if you have trouble with them, it's no surprise.

    You can't figure out which preposition is the correct one in any given situation by logic. You have to simply notice how other people use them, and copy our usage. Which is what you're doing here. Good for you!
    What country do you live in? My information technology career in the United States goes back to 1967 and I've never seen it spelled with two L's. As I noted, that spelling is not in any of the American dictionaries that Dictionary.com uses as source material.
     
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  5. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    Correction:
    1. I read about the news of Tsunami from the internet.

    2. I knew a friend from Africa through Facebook of the internet.

    Correct?
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Everyone knows facebook is on the internet, so you don't have to say that. #1 is correct.
     
  8. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    No. You learned about it from the internet, but you read it (or read about it) on the internet.

    As I said, there is no logic in our use of prepositions. You have to learn each combination individually, and you can't generalize from one to another.
    No. You can say, "I knew him through the Ornithological Society," or "through my contacts in my university alumni association," or "through my temporary job in the cafeteria." It needs to be an organization, not a place.

    Otherwise you should say how you met the person. "I met her in the park," "I met him at work," "I met them on the bus."

    So, "I met my friend from Africa on Facebook." You're talking about a specific person so you should not say "a friend." And as Spider says, you don't have to tell us that Facebook is an internet site. Even if you did, "of the internet" would be the wrong way to say it. "On the internet" would be better.

    "I found a new job on one of the career boards on the internet."
     
  9. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    1. I made a new friend on a social website.
    2. There are plenty of information about Christianity in the internet.

    Correct?
     
  10. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    1. Yes - correct.
    2. There IS plenty of information about Christianity ON the internet.
     
  11. Saint Valued Senior Member

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    my mistake:
    There is plenty of information about Christianity on the internet.

    And,

    I can make many friends all over the world in the cyberspace.

    Correct?
     
  12. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    No. . . . . in cyberspace. No "the."
     
  13. Misty155 Registered Senior Member

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    23
    I read it in the internet.
    I got it on the internet.
     
  14. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Most would say "I read it ON the internet".

    As for whether one gets things ON or OFF the internet, I think that is more context specific: for information I would say "I got it OFF the internet" but for things like purchases, I might say "I got it ON the internet".
    ON could also mean ABOUT... i.e. "you got a book on the internet" could mean you bought a book through Amazon (or other online retailer), or it could mean you bought a book on the subject of the internet.

    Such is the varied use of IN, ON, OFF etc.
     
  15. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Americans never say "in" the internet. It's "on" the internet.
     
  16. Gustav Banned Banned

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    the rest of the world


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    americans
     
  17. Gustav Banned Banned

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    i am on america
    on the art world, there are many poseurs

    routers in the internet........
     
  18. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    We invented it. We make the rules. It's "on the internet." Everybody else is wrong.

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  19. Gustav Banned Banned

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    inter >in terra> inside earth > inside something

    net > network > connected objects

    inter network > inside network


    ??
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2011
  20. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I never know when you're joking, but that is not a correct etymology of the morpheme "inter-".

    Inter is a Latin preposition, the word for "between" or "among." It is not a compound. Its venerable roots go all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European preposition enter, which meant exactly the same thing.

    This word has been passed down widely throughout the Indo-European family, usually with the same meaning, such as Sanskrit antar, but occasionally with a slight shift in meaning such as English "under," or an even greater shift, such as Greek entera, "intestines."

    "Internet" was a shortening in 1985 of the original coinage "internetwork." Originally it meant a set of linked DoD networks, using the prefix meaning "among" or "between" to express the sense that its purpose was to facilitate communication among or between the individual networks.

    "Inter-" has nothing to do with "in" or "inside." The similarity between Latin inter and Latin (and English, German, Italian, etc.) in is coincidental.
     
  21. Gustav Banned Banned

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    12,575

    within a group > within a network

    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    Inter may refer to:

    * inter to place inside of the earth, from the Latin "in" (in) + "terra" (earth, ground)
    Further information: burial

    * Inter- is a Latin prefix meaning "between", among, or "within a group".


    -----------------------------------------------------------------------

    in·ter (n-tûr)
    tr.v. in·terred, in·ter·ring, in·ters
    To place in a grave or tomb; bury.
    [Middle English enteren, from Old French enterrer, from Medieval Latin interrre : Latin in-, in; see in-2 + Latin terra, earth; see ters- in Indo-European roots.]


    -----------------------------------------------------------------

    inter-, intero-
    (Latin: between; among, mutually, together; on the inside, internal)


    ---------------------------------------------------------------
    ??
    still no?
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2011
  22. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Still no. We don't pronounce it in-TER-net.
     
  23. Gustav Banned Banned

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    innernet?

    /chuckle

    well then....

    in·ner

    adjective
    1.
    situated within or farther within; interior: an inner door.



    /joke
     

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