In and on

Question

There are tow sentences  1.He was born in January 2.He was born on January 15,1950 why No.1 sentence  prepositions is "in" , No.2 is on.

MountainHiker · Accepted Answer

Jeter,

This is my wild guess.

1) He was born in January. Short form for...He was born in the month of January.

2) He was born on January 15, 1950. Short form for...He was born on the date of January 15, 1950.

I am not sure how else to explain it.

Wait to see what others have to say.

MountainHiker

CalifJim · Answer

A lot of idioms just don't make sense, I agree.

You just have to learn them!

But here's something that may help you. Think of a big twelve-month calendar placed flat on a table. The calendar covers the whole table. Imagine a little fence around each month. So each month forms a little area, and you can put things IN that area. Put a little coin IN January -- inside the fence that surrounds January. Put another coin IN August. Can you put a coin ON June? No, June is too big. You can't cover the whole month of June by putting a little coin ON it. It's an entire area, so you put the coin IN June. Now take a coin and place it ON your birthday. Did you notice that the coin is small enough to be placed directly ON any given date?

You see, all the dates that belong to the same month are thought of as being IN, within, or inside the month, just as an object can be IN, within, or inside of a defined area. So when we don't know the exact date, we say that it's IN a certain month. The same is true of a week. You can talk about the first week IN March, the third week IN July.

If we know the exact date of an event, we say it happened ON a certain day. It doesn't have to be a date; it can be the name of a day of the week: ON Monday, ON Tuesday, and so on. It can be some other expression: ON the first day of the week, ON my birthday, ON Flag Day, and so on.

I hope this helps.

MountainHiker · Answer

CalifJim,

That was good!

MountainHiker

Jeter · Answer

hi Califjim
very thanks , you are really cleverer than me ,
I read an article that has a sentence " Every dog has its day " be correct or
Every dog has his day " .

thank.

Maj · Answer

What does this expression really mean?

MountainHiker · Answer

Maj,

every dog has its day

According to GuruNet which relies upon The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms, this expression means that even the lowliest will sometimes have their opportunity. According to the source, during the mid 1500s, dogs had a low status.

Since we are writing during the Olympics, let's use an athletic theme to demonstrate the use of this idiom.

Imagine an athlete who just barely made the national team in wrestling, but only because another wrestler was injured. He clearly wasn't very good compared to the others. In the Olympics, he marginally won his first match. As the matches progressed, he seemed to get better and better. He made it to the finals where he miraculously won his weight division. One sports reporter wrote, "Every dog has its day." This means, this individual was an underdog (like the "dog"? ) who managed to overcome adversity and has defeated those supposedly much more powerful and skillful than himself.

I hope that helps.

MountainHiker

Easyway · Answer

hello , jeter

" Every dog has its day " this is idom . So you can't instead " his "

In and on

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