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Prepositions are perhaps the most versatile and powerful words in the English language.\u00a0 What English does with prepositions is notoriously hard for non-native speakers to learn.\u00a0\u00a0 In this first \"preposition idiom\" article, we will look at the preposition \"from.\"<\/p>\n
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The word \"from\" is a preposition.\u00a0 This means, it must be followed by a noun --- or by something playing the role of a noun.\u00a0\u00a0 This latter category includes\u00a0gerunds<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0substantive clauses<\/a>.<\/p>\n 1) The\u00a0SEC<\/a>\u00a0prohibits folks with inside information about a company from\u00a0trading that company's stocks and options.<\/p>\n 2) The state senator strove to distinguish his party's nuanced position on immigration from\u00a0what the controversial fringe group advocates.<\/p>\n In sentence #1, the object of \"from\" is a gerund phrase, and in sentence #2, the object is a substantive clause.\u00a0\u00a0 Incidentally, both of these are exemplary of idioms involving the word \"from.\"<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Some verbs require the word \"from.\"\u00a0 Some of these verbs involve some kind of spatial separation, at least in their literal sense:<\/p>\n isolate from<\/strong><\/p>\n separate from<\/strong><\/p>\n descend from<\/strong><\/p>\n For other verbs, the separation is not literal and spatial, but conceptual<\/p>\n differ from<\/strong><\/p>\n prevent A from B<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n prohibit A from B<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n For both \"prevent\" and \"prohibit\", the object of \"from\" is almost always a gerund ---- \"to prevent someone from talking\", \"to prohibit citizens of one state from\u00a0suing a another state<\/a>.\"<\/p>\n Another unusual \"from\" idiom involves the verb \"to choose\".\u00a0 When a person chooses an action, we say that person \"chooses to do X<\/a>\" --- the action is expressed as\u00a0an infinitive<\/a>.\u00a0 When we are discussing the various options available to the person choosing, we use the idiom:<\/p>\n choose from<\/strong><\/p>\n Here, the object of \"from\" is the set or list of available options.<\/p>\n 3) Congress balked when\u00a0President Reagan<\/a>\u00a0chose\u00a0Robert Bork<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0all available federal judges.<\/p>\n Here, the phrase \"all available federal judges\" gives the array of options from which the choice was made.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The words \"to\" and \"from\" are used for approach and receding,\u00a0from A to B<\/strong>, both literally and figuratively.<\/p>\n 4) General Sherman\u00a0marched<\/a>\u00a0from Atlanta to Savannah, destroying everything along the way.<\/p>\n 5) Whereas a modern American feast is said to go \"from soup to nuts\", an ancient Roman banquet went\u00a0ab ovo usque ad pomo<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(\"from the egg to the apple\").<\/p>\n 6)\u00a0Sviatoslav Richter<\/a>'s repertoire ranged from works by eighteenth century Baroque composers, such as\u00a0Bach<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Handel<\/a>, to contemporary compositions, by\u00a0Soviet<\/a>\u00a0composers such as\u00a0Shostakovich<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Prokofiev<\/a>, some of whose works Richter premiered.<\/p>\n Notice, in that last sentence the idiom \"to range from A to B<\/strong>\", a way of talking about the literal or figurative extent of something.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Above, I cited a verb idiom involving the preposition \"from\":<\/p>\n to differ from<\/strong><\/p>\n The adjective form \"different\" also follows this form:<\/p>\n different from<\/strong><\/p>\n 7) Few can say whether a\u00a0chaconne<\/a>\u00a0is truly different from a\u00a0passacaglia<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes a root word retains the same idiom as it changes from one grammatical form to another.<\/p>\n Another idiom the verb differ follows is<\/p>\n to differ in<\/strong><\/p>\n Here, we are not describing the two parties who differ, but rather the field or discipline in which they differ<\/p>\n 8) Representative\u00a0Hostettler<\/a>\u00a0and Representative\u00a0Frank<\/a>\u00a0differ in their position on gay marriage.<\/p>\n The noun form \"difference\" shares this latter idiom with the verb and follows its own idioms:<\/p>\n difference in<\/strong><\/p>\n difference between<\/strong><\/p>\n difference with respect to<\/strong><\/p>\n 8) The president and prime minister have no difference in standing on the proposed trade bill.<\/p>\n 9) Ethicists ordinarily underscore the difference between \"white lies', designed to protect the feelings of others, and lies of malice motivated by venal self-interest.<\/p>\n 10) Since the Senator's reelection, political commentators have remarked on subtle differences with respect to his portrayal of the tax reform.<\/p>\n The \"between\" idiom indicates the parties that differ, while the \"in\" or \"with respect to\" describe the subject or field of the difference: either one of these latter can be combined with the \"between\" idiom:<\/p>\n 11) The difference in hitting technique between\u00a0Babe Ruth<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Ted Williams<\/a>\u00a0is the subject of endless debate.<\/p>\n 12) Between the original 1937 movie and the current remake, critics have noted differences with respect to the murderer's motivations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As always with idioms, read, read,\u00a0read<\/a>!\u00a0\u00a0 Search for these \"from\" idioms and other bold idioms in this post in context.\u00a0 You understand English best when you understand it in context.<\/p>\n This post was written by Mike McGarry, GMAT expert at Magoosh<\/a>, and originally posted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Prepositions are perhaps the most versatile and powerful words in the English language.\u00a0 What English does with prepositions is notoriously hard for non-native speakers to learn.\u00a0\u00a0 In this first “preposition…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,783,243,719,735],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gmat","category-magoosh-blog","category-blog","category-sentence-correction-gmat","category-verbal-gmat-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15830"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15832,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15830\/revisions\/15832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Verbs + \"from\"<\/h2>\n
More about spatial relationships<\/h2>\n
More about differences<\/h2>\n
Summary<\/h1>\n