sidoknowia wrote:
Yes that helps.
Thank you. I'm indeed a user Flashcard app, and it helps to gain familiarity with a lot of idioms.
One small doubt, related to your earlier answer.
mikemcgarry wrote:
The split in #2 is interesting. If we say "neuroscientists in Albuquerque," then we are talking about neuroscientists who just happen to be working at some university or institute in Albuquerque: we are simply providing some extra detail about location to distinguish them from other neuroscientists. By contrast, the phrase "the neuroscientists of Albuquerque" almost seems to imply that the city of Albuquerque for some reason has hired neuroscientists to work for the city's own purposes, as if it were normal for a city to have its own staff of neuroscientists. Of course, that's absurd: cities typically do not hire neuroscientists to work for municipal purposes.
when we say 'of Alburqueque', don't we mean belonging to that place?
For example : The president of countryA asked for idiom rules improvement plan.
or The ancient tribes of Africa were fearsome.
Dear
sidoknowia,
I'm happy to respond.
Yes, it's absolutely true that the preposition "
of" denotes, among other things, possessions. Of course, "
the president of a country" or "
the tribes of Africa" or "
the baseball teams of New York City" are all examples.
When we start to talk about
[people] of [place], there are some subtle connotations that might not be obvious to folks who are not native speakers of English. It's perfectly fine to talk about the "
people of Berkeley." I live and work in
Berkeley, so it would be perfectly fine to say that I am "
a citizen of Berkeley" or "
a resident of Berkeley." When we start to identify people by their professional titles, saying the people are "
of" a certain place has the connotation that they are municipal employees. It would be perfectly natural to talk about "
the mayor of Berkeley," the "
policemen of Berkeley," etc. But if a doctor has a practice in Berkeley, it would sound odd to say that she was a "
doctor of Berkeley"---that sounds as if she is employee by the city or treats the health of the city as a whole, rather than individual patients. If we spoke about a "
lawyer of Berkeley," that sounds odd, and it would seem to indicate a lawyer that works specifically for the city, not one who simply has a private practice in the city. There's a major laboratory in Berkeley, so there are many scientists here, but it awkward to talk about "
the scientists of Berkeley." This is a very funny thing about capitalist society. A municipal employee has a job that "belongs" to the city, to the government, but a private employee does not have a job that "belongs" to the place where she works: such an employee is "
in the city" without being "
of the city."
It's precisely the same for those neuroscientists working in the lovely city of
Albuquerque. Yes, those neuroscientists do their research in Albuquerque, but they are not employees of that city in any way. Other than general taxes, the city has absolutely no interest in what the neuroscientists are doing, and the city certainly does not play any role in directing their research. The phrase "
neuroscientists of Albuquerque" suggests this very strange world in which a city hires neuroscientists and pays them to something nefarious, say, develop projects by which the city can manipulate its citizens. It's very disturbing and a 100% inaccurate picture of the very cool town of Albuquerque.
Does this make sense?
Mike
Got it.