I am trying to explain to a teacher as to why "with" cannot be replaced by "of" in this sentence:"Jeff decided to buy the stamp with a planet on it because he likes everything about space."
But 'with' CAN be interchangeable in other sentences such as "He also found a large poster of the eight planets."
Is there any grammar rule that covers this and can help me explain clearly? I am having trouble finding much in my texts or on the net.
Lady Morgana
Favorite Answer
Hi there!
So you are talking about the part "...to buy a stamp WITH a planet on it..." yes? And in the second example, you can say "...found a large poster of the eight planets." So why can you use either "of" or "with" in your second example but not the first?
First, if you use "with" in the second example, it is ok but not the best, so I would say that they are not entirely interchangeable even there. However, you are quite right in stating that "with" cannot be replace by "of" in your first example. The reason why is that you have a prepositional phrase after the word "planet" in the first sentence, ie, "on it." Notice that if you take those two words out, you CAN use the word "of" interchangeably with "with."
If you put "of" in the first sentence, it makes no sense, and that is because of the prepositional phrase. Check it out: "Jeff decided to buy the stamp of a planet on it because he likes everything about space." To say "of a planet on it" makes no sense in English. You need "with" because it directly describes the relationship between the words "stamp' and "planet."
Tell your teacher that a fellow teacher suggests that she substitute it in the sentence, like this, and if she is fluent in English, it should be very clear to her that, because of the prepositional phrase, the only correct preposition to link the stamp and the planet is "with." Then show her that she is right, but ONLY if you take out "on it."
Maybe telling her that last part will make her feel slightly mollified about being not entirely right on this one.
Best of luck!
Lady Morgana
English teacher for 13 years
BA in English from UC Berkeley
Doctor of Jurisprudence, San Francisco Law School
Anonymous
The 'on it' part.
If you were to say "Jeff decided to buy the stamp OF a planet on it because he likes everything about space," you would have to remove the 'on it' phrase for the sentence to make sense. 'Of' and 'with' are easily interchangeable in some cases, like your second sentence. But like in your first sentence, you sometimes have to take something out or add something in.
That's just my guess, though.
Your Master
this has made me question my english fluency. I would say 'buy the stamp of a planet...'
thats still correct right?
TT
i'm a little confused... are you saying they can't be used TOGETHER in the SAME sentence? because "She bought the book WITH a picture OF strawberries on the cover." works... sorry if thats not what you're saying but, like i said, i'm confused