I want to state that I cook on Mondays, Tue, Wed, Thur, and Fri, in my house every week. Should I say "I cook on Mondays to Fridays" or "I cook from Mondays to Fridays", or something else?
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3 Answers
Any of the following are OK, and synonymous:
- I cook Monday to Friday.
- I cook Monday through Friday.
- I cook Mondays through Fridays.
- I cook from Monday to Friday.
- I cook on Monday through Friday.
As you can see, the first preposition is unnecessary, as is the plural.
If you insist on having two prepositions for some reason, from ... to and on ... through seem more likely to me, but that may be just my personal preference.
This is one of those constructions where there's a lot of possible choices that don't make any difference, as long as you avoid distractions. After all, it's such an expected situation that it gets abbreviated as just M-F most of the time.
answered Jul 23, 2012 at 17:17
Or you can spare yourself the trouble and just say:
I cook every day except on weekends/the weekend. (AE)
I cook every day except at weekends/the weekend. (BE)
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@Tigerhead I believe you can't and I think you must use one of the two prepositions for it to make sense. If you are enumerating weekdays and want to exclude a specific day or days (in this case, the weekend), you'd say: "... except weekends", but, you're actually not, you're excluding weekends because you're not doing your daily activity "on" those specific days. In my opinion, it's more accurate to say "on" or "at" weekends.– NoraCommented Jul 23, 2012 at 18:56
There is a minor semantic difference:
'Cooking on Mondays to Fridays' allows that you may cook on Mondays to Fridays between 9am and 4pm
'Cooking from Mondays to Fridays' allows that you may cook from Monday to Friday (24hr continuously), for the Monday-to-Friday cycle of each and every week.
The latter is unlikely in context to the verb, but may be more than appropriate for other verbs, such as industrial manufacturing processes.
answered Jul 23, 2012 at 20:39
