Can one preposition directly follow another in a sentence?

Question

Can one preposition directly follow another in a sentence? The sentence in question is: "I am so impressed by the one-on-one time that we can take advantage of with the executives-in-residence program." I can just change the sentence, but I was also wondering about the rules of grammar in regards to this case.

Answer 1

Other types of sentences I can think of which may exemplify a case where one preposition follows another in the same phrase belong, of course, to the category in which a second preposition, for collocation reasons, is placed right after a preceding one which, in turn, in part and parcel of a phrasal or multiword verb, as in:

"My brother always looks up to my father: he's like a reference point to him." "The sniper carefully zeroed in on the target assigned."

L2 Pre-Intermediate students often find similar examples rather tricky when they need to trasform them into the passive voice, as they tend to forget to keep the second preposition.

Answer 2

There's nothing ungrammatical about it: it's just a coincidence that the phrasal verb take advantage of is followed by with. However, as waiwai933♦ has sugggested, it's not very elegant, partly because of the preceding one-on-one time. Cases such as this are not to be confused with complex prepositions like in place of, up to and except for, which can be used without hesitation.