I'm a big fan of grammar. Surprise, right? But in order to use grammar properly, we need to understand the parts of a sentence. A lot of grammar deals with objects of sentences. You know, subject, verb, object. Suzy slapped Bobby.
But not everything that comes after a verb is an object. Prepositional phrases can throw a wrench into the mix.
The cat is on the cloud. Photo by Mikael Tigerström
Prepositional phrases are phrases that start with prepositions, and end with a noun. Prepositions can be tricky to define, but the way that my grade school teacher explained them to me is that they are “anywhere the cat can go.” This wise teaching was accompanied by drawings of cats on tables, under tables, near tables, and by tables. The preposition explains the relationship between the cat and the table, just as it explains the relationship between nouns in a sentence.
The tricky part is remembering that nouns within prepositional phrases are not objects of the sentence. This can get challenging when you are tackling grammatical conundrums that are dependent on direct objects. Practice makes perfect though, and the more you practice, the easier it is to recognize prepositional phrases.
PRACTICE
Speaking of practice, let's write about that pesky cat. Come up with as many creative prepositional phrases involving the cat as you can (e.g. the cat sat on the hot stove), and post your practice in the comments.
Leave notes for your fellow writers as well.
Schrödinger’s Cat
The cat is in the room and not in the room.
This cat is above my head!
Where are you?
Maybe that would have been better stated as “over my head”! Haha!
I liked your first rendition—it’s full of poetic ambiguity.
Nice, Larry. Do you watch The Big Bang Theory?
Thanks, Joe. I have seen “The Big Bang Theory” but I learned about Schrödinger in school. A couple of months ago, I wrote a short prose poem called “Schrödinger’s Room” on this same theme which I’m now sending around the poetry circuit.
Let me take this opportunity to say that a couple of your practice challenges have stimulated my muse to work on short notice and spontaneously with results that have pleased me very much. Thanks for creating the opportunity and the challenge.
Ah full of philosophical significance. Actually how we are a lot of the time. Not present. And then, this sentence raises all kinds of thoughts about elephants in the room that are not supposed to be as well. What a magnificent little sentence!!!
Jazz Cats
The cats are on the bandstand. One cat is inside the changes. Another cat is outside the changes. You dig?
I think so: different kinds of cat.
The cat crept toward the fly. The fly flew to the window. The cat jumped on the sill. The fly thumped against the glass. The cat batted the fly. The fly buzzed to the corner . The cat lept into the air. The fly flew into the room. I killed the fly with a swatter. The cat layed on the floor.
…an action thriller.
The cat, whose name was longer than most humans, sat with a smug smile on the plush white couch, her claws dug in the velour fabric; scratch, scratch, scratch. Contentedly she purred, stretched and yawned. The smile plastered on her face was as wide as all of Cheshire.
Did her name start with “Pfennig…”?
Princess Tiggywinkle Tippletoes the Terrible died in a vehicular accident 2 months ago, she was a rescue kitten and came too soon, she would latch onto my jumpers and suckle the thread. She became pregnant her first season and was a dreadful momma, as soon as she heard me she left her babies to suckle my jumper. Her kittens were killed by a fox. I decided not to get her sterilised because I thought she deserved another chance at motherhood, she didn’t have another season for a whole year. Two months ago I noticed the local “Tom” around and sure enough there was Tig (the shortened name) acting like a wee ne’er-do-well showing off for Tom. Later that day all the cats and my dog were rushing down the drive to boreen and there was Tig, flattened by whatever vehicle had been there. I still miss her, she was a very special cat amongst many…
I love this cat. Such a catty description.
Feet, reaching for the floor, found dead cat in a heap beneath bed! Minutes later cat re-spawned beginning 9th life. Cat knew not to sleep beside bed; cat don’t listen. Sprouting wings cat flew, without fear, to the banister where cat disapeared until mealtime. Cat loves to live life among the clouds. One must take carefull note of cat’s presence when one can because cat weaves between the then and now fighting against the establishment.
cat’s far
to the cat
who is crouched on the floor
looking up to the top
of the big bookshelf
it’s not far
not far at all
Wit is evident througout this clever group of words … excellent!
Go ahead, kitty, take a leap. Go for it! Simba and Aslan await you up on that shelf.
Great…
Young Felix was sitting on an adverbial phrase when his cuteness, in spite of the dour expression, inspired the host ghost writer to use his almost-earless image as a furry prompt.
So ghostly Joe linked the feline’s iconic image to a prepositional proposition.And that’s how Felix found himself in the cloud inspiring writers to practice their craft instantaneously in a grammatical challenge without precedent. Never before has this happened. Nor will it ever again. But a good time was had by all.
What a clever commentary on the exercise.
My cat Spot loves to sit on the dinner table, on the printer, on the laptop, pace around the kitchen counter, jump into the washer, lie by the fire, sun near the window, gnaws on books, flips over the dish bowls, lies over my backpack when I am trying to leave to go to work, chases after his toys, sleeps with us, likes it under the covers, throws bits of litter across the floor. That’s right Spot is a cat who thinks he’s a dog.
More meditations by a skein of silk… this is earlier in it’s life before it got made into carpet.
BTW I re-submitted the Spring piece including a bit about the skein of red silk for the competition, but it didn’t get posted. Not to worry. Will do something else next time.
Anyway here goes:
Cat and Silk at Play
The cat settles on the ground in front of me, waiting to pounce at my slightest movement. Silly animal. A skein of silk won’t … can’t … never … moves of its own accord. I’m inanimate you animal!
It’s a question of the cat’s patience. I’m hanging from a hook in front of the window, weighed down with wet dye. I won’t be moving for a while. But the summer sun’s on my length, and I can feel the dye dripping, dripping, down onto the stone basin below me. I’ll dry in no time. By evening, when the wind from the valley drifts up towards our house, I shall begin to dance. I’m inanimate. There’s nothing I can do about drying or not. It’s only a kitten, I sense from the amount of space it displaces. I hope it has a kitten’s wandering attention.
The cat and I wait out the hours. I sense it shift as its body ripples the air below me. It’s circling underneath me now, around the basin. A little wave of disturbance rises up to me as it tries to bats at the red madder falling in drip drops before its big green eyes. It stops. The air is still. But I can feel its attention directed up towards the source of the crimson droplets, at me. It leaps cutting through the air.
A stray waft of afternoon air shifts my length, a fraction. The kitten is too small, too weak, to get at me. I drop back into place. More red drips from me. The cat skips and jumps beneath me. And every now and then, when the air stirs and I dance a little, I feel it’s body rise to reach out towards me.
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. The cat is in the crosshairs.
Bam! Just in time, the cat is up the tree.
The cat springs along the branches, sprints through the field, races up the steps to the deck and plasters itself to the kitchen window.
Let me in! the cat mouths to the family eating breakfast inside the house.
The little girl drops her spoon into her cereal bowl and points. Look, Dad, there is a cat in our window.
The father turns around in his chair. I wonder where that cat belongs? he says.
Tabby Tales
Tabby laid on the sun-drenched window sill watching out at the birds in the feeder across from the back porch. After she had soaked in her recommended daily allotment of rays, she jumped down from her perch to mingle with the lowly pets of the household. Though an animal, she was not a pet herself. Her status was above and beyond theirs. But she felt it good to mingle with the little ones now and then. It helped to make her thankful she was not one of them. Besides, she had some time to kill as she was between feedings and brushings, her keepers still off at their other jobs, their primary job being to care for her.
She sashayed through the dining room, towards the den, near the bathroom, beside the basement steps. As she glided under the table a shimmer caught her eye. She looked up and saw the sunlight bouncing off the chandelier crystals, the prisms reflecting dazzling rainbows all around her, like colorful flashes from the camera’s of the paparazzi.
Their brilliance blinded her and she bumped against the frame of the den entryway. The glance was enough to throw Tabby off balance and she fell over. Attempting to right herself – her body and her reputation – she did not notice the pile of pet toys by the basement doorway. Her head held high, swaying from side to side, giving her subjects some slight, polite attention she stepped on a squeaky bone, its shrill screech catching , her by surprise. Before she could collect her composure, Tabby tripped over a stuffed fire hydrant and sent a tennis ball flying. The ball bounced up and hit her from behind, sending her down the basement steps.
Tabby tumbled down, flipping head over paws a few times. Her landing at the bottom was a fortuitous one, coming to rest among a pile of rags soaked in dog urine that her keepers had thrown down the steps after cleaning up from a dog accident hours before. Bathed in her ammonia scented perfume, Tab walked up the basement steps towards her keepers’ favorite chairs, where she snuggled in deeply, transferring the odiferous aroma to their resting places.
After she was sufficiently satisfied there was no trace of canine cologne on her, she returned to her perch in the window looking into the yard awaiting her keepers’ return.
Aats are rummaging throughout the baskets in the cellar. Two cats atleast, making noise, causing havoc and screeching their pesky claws against the floor.