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GCheng620 Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

A scourge of/to some people?

Here's the context:
"Ah, Brian Ferneyhough, scourge of musicians who value their sanity."
It's funny article about how musicians encounter some situation that baffle them.

I just think that the preposition "of" should be replaced by "to" in accord to the context.

Anyone can explain?

Thanks in advance:)
  

Top answer

Of is correct. I'm not sure of the intricacies here, so I'll let someone else explain it.

— Philip

  • Of is correct.
  • I'm not sure of the intricacies here, so I'll let someone else explain it.
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5 Answers
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Of is correct. I'm not sure of the intricacies here, so I'll let someone else explain it.
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GCheng620I just think that the preposition "of" should be replaced by "to" in accord to the context.
No. When scourge is followed by a prepositional phrase, the preposition is almost always "of". The American Corpus lists 370+ instances of "of" and only 8 of "to" and "on." None of the exceptions apply to your sentence.

eg:
We will see an explosi
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PhilipOf is correct. I'm not sure of the intricacies here, so I'll let someone else explain it.
So does that mean "to" is wrong in this context?

Thanks in advance!:)
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AlpheccaStars GCheng620I just think that the preposition "of" should be replaced by "to" in accord to the context.No. When scourge is followed by a prepositional phrase, the preposition is almost always "of". The American Corpus lists 370+ instances of "of" and only 8 of "to" and "on." None of the exceptions apply to your sentence. eg: We will see an explosion of gene-the
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GCheng620So does that mean "to" is wrong in this context?
Since "scourge" is used as a concept, not a particular disease or malady, "of" is the proper preposition.
You can consider it a set phrase: "scourge of humanity / artists / writers / philosophers"
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