Indicating position

6.64 The prepositional phrases in the following examples indicate the place where an action occurs, or the place where someone or something is.

The children shouted, waving leafy branches above their heads.

The whole play takes place at a beach club.

Two minutes later we were safely inside the taxi.

He stood near the door.

She kept his picture on her bedside table.

6.65 The following prepositions are used to specify position:

aboard about above across against ahead of all over along alongside amidst

among around astride at away from before behind below beneath beside

between beyond by close by close to down in in between in front of inside

near near to next to off on on top of opposite out of outside past

through under underneath up upon with within

6.66 Some prepositions can only be used with a restricted group of nouns.

For example, 'aboard' is used with a noun referring to a form of transport, such as 'ship', 'plane', 'train', or 'bus', or with the name of a particular ship, the flight number for a particular plane journey, and so on.

There's something terribly wrong aboard this ship, Dr Marlowe.

He's not aboard the Morning Rose.

...getting aboard that flight to Rome.

He climbed aboard a truck.

Here is a list of nouns which you can use with 'aboard' to indicate position:

aircraft carrier bike boat bus

coach ferry jet plane

rocket ship sledge space shuttle

train trawler truck yacht

'Astride' is mainly used to indicate that a person has one leg on each side of something, usually sitting on it or riding it.

He whipped out a chair and sat astride it.

I made it there astride one of these courageous little donkeys.

When 'before' is used to indicate position, the object is usually a person or group of people.

Leading representatives were put firmly in their place before a live television audience.

He appeared before a disciplinary committee.

'All over' usually has a large or indefinite area as its object.

Hundreds of Jews all over the world are finding their way back to their ancestral traditions.

There were pieces of ship all over the place.

USAGE NOTE 6.67 Some prepositions have several meanings. For example, 'on' can be used to indicate that someone or something is resting on a horizontal surface or is attached to something, or that someone's place of work is an area such as a farm or a building site.

The phone was on the floor in the hallway.

I lowered myself into the ravine on a rope tied to the trunk of a tree.

My father worked on a farm.

prepositions with comparative forms 6.68 'Near', 'near to', and 'close to' have comparative forms that can also be used as prepositions.

New lockers had been installed nearer their workplace.

Venus is much nearer to the Sun than the Earth.

The judge's bench was closer to me than Ruchell's chair.

more specific position 6.69 If you want to say more exactly which part of the other thing an object is nearest to, or exactly which part of an area or room it is in, you can use one of the following prepositions: 'at', 'by', 'in', 'near', 'on', 'round'. 'To' and 'towards', usually used to indicate direction, are used to express position in a more approximate way.

The objects of the prepositions are nouns referring to parts of an object of place, such as 'top', 'bottom', and 'edge'. Here is a list of words which are used to refer to parts of an object or place:

back bottom edge end front left middle right

side top ~ east east-west north north-east north-west

south south-east south-west west ~ bankside bedside dockside

graveside hillside kerbside lakeside mountainside poolside quayside ringside

roadside seaside waterside

When the place that you are referring to is obvious or has been stated earlier, you use the nouns in the singular with the determiner 'the'.

I ran inside and bounded up the stairs. Wendy was standing at the top.

He was sitting towards the rear.

To the north are the main gardens.

We found him sitting by the fireside.

Other determiners, for example 'this' and 'each', can be used with nouns such as 'side', 'end', and 'edge', because an object or place may have several sides, ends, or edges.

Loosen the two screws at each end of the fuse.

Standing on either side of him were two younger men.

If the person or thing has been mentioned or is obvious, a possessive determiner can be used.

It was a very tall elm and there were thorn bushes round its base.

There was a gate on our left.

6.70 Note that two or three word prepositions which include the word 'of' are more specific because 'of' can be followed by any nominal group.

She turned and rushed out of the room.

There was a man standing in front of me.

My sister started piling the books on top of each other.

6.71 The place where an action occurs, or where someone or something is, can also be indicated by stating its distance from another object or place.

You can mention the actual distance before a prepositional phrase with 'from' or 'away from'.

Here he sat on the terrace a few feet from the roaring traffic.

The ball swerved two feet away from her to lodge in the net.

Distance can also be expressed in terms of the time taken to travel it.

It is half an hour from the Pinewood Studios and forty-five minutes from London.

They lived only two or three days away from Juffure.

The method of travelling can be stated to be even more precise.

It is less than an hour's drive from here.

It's about five minutes' walk from the bus stop.

6.72 To indicate both where something is and how far from another object or place it is, the distance can be stated before the following prepositions:

above along behind

below beneath beyond

down inside outside

past under up

The fish was meandering a few feet above the sandy bottom.

The distance can also be stated before prepositional phrases including 'left' and 'right' or points of the compass such as 'north' and 'south-east'.

We lived forty miles to the east of Ottawa.