Timeline for "Born in a City" or "Born at a City"? Uncommon Usage by Edward FitzGerald [duplicate]
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1, 2019 at 2:05 | history | closed |
Edwin Ashworth Jason Bassford JJJ Xanne Chappo Hasn't Forgotten |
Duplicate of "At" vs. "in" followed by a city name | |
| Jul 29, 2019 at 8:03 | history | edited | FatihAkici | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 9 characters in body
|
| Jul 29, 2019 at 3:06 | history | edited | FatihAkici | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Edited to articulate why my question is not a duplicate.
|
| Jul 28, 2019 at 22:27 | vote | accept | FatihAkici | ||
| Jul 28, 2019 at 20:03 | answer | added | Peter Shor | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 14:55 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | Shoe's and D.F.'s answers are not relevant here. [Born] 'in' would be the default choice, 'at' idiosyncratic at best. /// These Google Ngrams indicate that 'was born in' is the normal choice, though 'was born at' is not unknown (though the former is now ten times as common). I've checked for false positives (temporal). | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 14:46 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | My tone was not at all intended to be arrogant; I'm sorry if it came / comes over that way. I'm trying to improve not just your but our approach to acceptability in English grammar. I'm not saying that Svartvik's model was the finished article, but I'm trying to point out the need to really examine what we mean by 'necessary' / 'acceptable' / 'illegitimate' / 'non-standard' etc. Since linguists assessing certain sentences disagree amongst themselves over acceptability, how can we label such sentences? Should we use them? // What is 'such a case' in your question? I can't see how ... | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 14:19 | comment | added | FatihAkici | @EdwinAshworth My question is not a duplicate of the one you referred to. That question asks "In which case should we use 'in' or 'at' for a city?", while what I am asking is "Why 'at' is used in a case we are taught 'in' would be appropriate?" You unfriendly and arrogant tone sounded like you are a true English language expert, who has a high standard in choosing the perfect words, and would nitpick otherwise; it is disappointing that you are not able to understand what you read. | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 14:10 | review | Close votes | |||
| Aug 1, 2019 at 2:05 | |||||
| Jul 28, 2019 at 13:53 | comment | added | Edwin Ashworth | An interesting evaluation system. Necessary ........ deprecated ... illegitimate (I'm guessing that 'deprecated' lies nearer the 'illegitimate' end). Svartvik proposed a 5-point acceptability scale. But no 'illegitimate'; do the Grammar Police take immediate action? Would FitzGerald be looking at a long sentence? | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 12:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/1155447917177651200 | ||
| Jul 28, 2019 at 10:59 | comment | added | Andrew Leach♦ | @Janus the data in your comment would improve the question, because it's not just about FitzGerald, really. | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 10:44 | history | edited | Janus Bahs Jacquet | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 9 characters in body; edited tags
|
| Jul 28, 2019 at 10:43 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Fatih It’s legitimate, but old-fashioned. Like Kate, my impression is that it wasn’t used willy-nilly, really, but I’ve never quite managed to get a good grasp on when people used to use at for cities. Cities in India and other colonised parts of the British Empire seem to have been especially prone to being at’ed, but I don’t know why. Many old books also have “Printed at [City]” on the title page. I think this is an excellent question. This isn’t a matter of American English, though, so I’ve removed that tag (and improved the formatting). | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 10:41 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | @Michael That’s somewhat different, though – of all the answers there, only Barrie England’s makes any note of the possible use of at with city names, which is what this question is about. (Actually, I think it’s what the other question was really about as well, since Puri is a city, but the answers all seem to have taken it for a generic question about when to use in and when to use at.) | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 8:33 | comment | added | Michael Harvey | This question comes up quite often. Just one example: Difference between “at” and “in” when specifying location | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 6:56 | comment | added | Kate Bunting | When I was learning the piano as a child, I remember noticing how the books of exam pieces used to say things like "W.A. Mozart; born at Salzburg 1756, died in Vienna 1791", as though 'in' was only considered appropriate for the largest cities. | |
| Jul 28, 2019 at 6:11 | history | asked | FatihAkici | CC BY-SA 4.0 |