I am a relatively new American ESL teacher and fell into crisis the other day teaching prepositions (ON Christmas, ON the weekend, AT noon) when my student looked at me like I was an idiot and pointed out that the (British) textbook said AT Christmas and AT the weekend. Despite feeling a little dumb to be contradicted by the book, "at Halloween" or "at Easter" just doesn't sound right. I haven't been able to find a good explanation of whether it is a difference between American and British English, or if I have just always said it wrong!
So I ask both the Americans and British, what do you use? On or at??
ON is used for specific days and special calendar days
we are going to sallys ON christmas day.
we are going to a show ON saturday.
we will have fun AT christmastime.
i will dress up ON halloween.
tricky lil prepositions
I totally agreed... until the textbook I was teaching out of said AT! Are you American? I'm now pretty sure it's a difference in British/American, I usually try and explain all different ways of saying things when I teach. Live and learn! Thanks for the help.
PS I figured out what a queue is after being asked "Are you queuing?" about 20 times in one day and giving 20 blank stares haha.
I use ON Christmas if I'm referring to the date.
I use AT Christmas if I'm referring to the event of celebrating.
I'm British (Scottish) and would say 'at Christmas' but would say 'on Christmas Day'
Thank you!
I also would say "at Christmas time," yet "on Christmas day." I am pretty sure that it is a difference between American and British English because I have found grammar guides on the internet that say both (individually, not either/or) are correct.
I am from New Zealand and this is a very good question.
When referring to the Weekend.... we use 'On'
When referring to Noon...... we use 'At'
Paraglider is correct with the Christmas variations.
and lift is elevator
queue is line,
humour is humor
My English is structured, am a Filipina so when i read books, I am quite confused at times, whether I speak or write correctly..., American or British..
really? yes, I'm American and use the Scott,Foreman handbook for writers. also in the teaching profession. it could be a difference as there are many between English and British.
interesting.
by Trudy Cooper 5 years ago
Please tell me what the difference is between writing a blog and writing a HubPage? If any?
by kumaresh roy 9 years ago
What is the difference between american english and local english?the pronounciation of english between local english and american english?
by How? 10 months ago
What is the difference between presentation and seminar?
by Cristina Cakes 4 years ago
What is the difference between popularity and friendship?
by momster 3 years ago
What is the difference between Ambition and Motivation?
by sumitparihar 9 years ago
I just wanted to know that what ascent is prefered,or best suited.
Copyright © 2021 HubPages Inc. and respective owners. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. HubPages® is a registered Service Mark of HubPages, Inc. HubPages and Hubbers (authors) may earn revenue on this page based on affiliate relationships and advertisements with partners including Amazon, Google, and others.
HubPages Inc, a part of Maven Inc.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://maven.io/company/pages/privacy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |