Question Of The Day: Grammar Help Needed, Please!

Three women “on” a car. Photo credit: anyjazz65, Flickr. 

Question: Why do we say “on the bus” or “on the plane” but we say “in the car”?

Answer: The most accurate answer, according to Ken Litkowski, a computational lexicographer specializing in prepositions, is “just because,” which is why non-English speakers have so much trouble with prepositions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “on” as “traveling in a public vehicle, meaning you should be “on” a car just like you’re “on” a bus or train, even though you’re “in” all of them.

This seeming dissonance has deep roots. Historically, according to Ben Zimmer, executive editor of Vocabulary.com and language columnist for the Wall Street Journal, “on” was used for pre-carriage conveyance, as in “on a horse” or other animal. Then came vehicles that were basically open platforms, which you would also sit “on.”

“Once this use of ‘on’ was established,” Zimmer says, “it came to be used for riding any large vehicle even if it’s enclosed, like ‘bus,’ ‘train,’ or 'plane.’ You can blame the inertia of English speakers that this usage of ‘on’ lingered for those big vehicles, even while ‘in’ came to be used for ‘carriage,’ 'coach,’ and eventually 'car.'”