It all depends

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.
William Carlos Williams

And so much depends upon the right preposition matched with its object beside the verb.

Prepositions are the little – and very tricky – words that define the relation between the parts of a sentence, and there is a huge difference between thinking up a solution or thinking about one, between talking about one’s neighbor and talking with him.

In itself, a word like about or up is rather meaningless, but combined with other words prepositions help determine when or where or under what conditions something happened. And yet, they are such mischievous troublemakers. Why do we have dinner at our house but prepare it in the kitchen? Why is he under stress and she is at ease? Trusting our ears will not always yield the correct result as the following sentences, all taken from major newspapers, illustrate.

Union membership for men dropped 11.4%. While the membership fee for a certain group may drop, membership among men has dropped.

Mrs. Name concurred in this sit-tight strategy. In fact, she concurred with it, which is just another way to say, she agreed with it.

Warner Bros. romantic comedy "Valentine's Day" seduced an estimated $10.4 million from about 4,400 screens in 58 markets. The comedy may have seduced movie goers in 58 markets to spend $10.4 million. It certainly didn’t seduce any money from screens.

Max wrote about his lifelong embarrassment of his brother Nat. Max probably wrote about his embarrassment at this brother’s behavior or that Nat’s behavior was an embarrassment to him.

A movement of Mahler would indicate that a certain person by the name of Mahler made a particular move. Yet, the author wrote about Gustav Mahler’s symphonies and thus about a movement by Mahler.

The odds are definitely against any odds for promotion but very strongly in favor of the odds of being promoted; and someone who finds himself in such an auspicious situation should not be frugal about asking his boss for a raise but simply be frugal and not ask for a 20% increase.

A perfect face-lift shall ensure that someone will never suffer through an overarched eyebrow. This sentence raises eyebrows because it is an example of placing a preposition where in fact none is needed.

The person who suffers such damaging plastic surgery then may need some pampering and decide to stow away to her favorite spa. Nothing against some pampering, but at her favorite spa.

High school’s last year didn’t yield anything other than to make one an unwed mother and a couple of them into victims of major car collisions. Why should the same situation make "one a mother" and "others into victims"? The preposition into is as much a surplus as is – in the author’s opinion – twelfth grade.

Some politicians claim that health care reform would be a great help towards struggling families. Others believe that they should rethink the whole plan and start over from a clean sheet of paper. Let’s start over with a clean sheet and make sure that the plan will be of help to families.

The crucial question is whether we know of prepositions or know something about them. When in doubt, a good dictionary will provide the correct answer.

Here is a good list of words that require particular prepositions.