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Anonymous Posted 21 years ago
Grammar
eat it VS eat of it
Dear helpers,
I was reading a book. In the book, there was a sentence - he ate of it.
I am wondering what the difference is btw
1. He ate of it.
and
2. He ate it.
Thank you all of you for your help.
^^
I was reading a book. In the book, there was a sentence - he ate of it.
I am wondering what the difference is btw
1. He ate of it.
and
2. He ate it.
Thank you all of you for your help.
^^
Top answer
Eat of is archaic-- almost Biblical in its portions.
- Eat of is archaic-- almost Biblical in its portions.
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2 Answers
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Hello Anon
Your question is interesting. “Eat of” is an expression new to me. So I looked for the phrase in my dictionaries. OED says it is an archaic expression popular in Middle English (as Mr Micawber said). The ‘of’ is a relic of the Old English’s genitive case of nouns and gives a partitive sense to its object. “I ate the apple” is “I ate the whole of the apple”. But “I ate of the a
Your question is interesting. “Eat of” is an expression new to me. So I looked for the phrase in my dictionaries. OED says it is an archaic expression popular in Middle English (as Mr Micawber said). The ‘of’ is a relic of the Old English’s genitive case of nouns and gives a partitive sense to its object. “I ate the apple” is “I ate the whole of the apple”. But “I ate of the a
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