In vs. During

Question

In/During periods of high demand, Thank you.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

During is better

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Either one is OK.

Samir1 · Answer

Why?

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Samir1Why?

Isn't it nice to have choices?

Samir1 · Answer

In a way.

So are you clueless as I am as to why the first guy said "during" was better? Thanks. I'd rather not blindly get my answer and go. Ideally, I'd like to be able to learn more about the reasons why, usage, grammar in general, etc.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Samir1So are you clueless as I am as to why the first guy said "during" was better?

The Anonymous poster just gave his opinion. Some writers prefer "during;" others prefer "in."
The popularity of certain words or phrases changes over time. In the early 1900's "in" was more popular; after about 1937, "during" was. And if you consider only the "Fiction" genre, the pattern is the same, but the cross-over point was much later, in 1968.
There's no grammatical reason for this change; it's like the change in popularity of music styles. If you want to go with the flow in your word usage, check the NGRAM viewer.

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=during+periods+of%2Cin+periods+of&year_start=1860&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cduring%20periods%20of%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cin%20periods%20of%3B%2Cc0

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=during+periods+of%2Cin+periods+of&year_start=1860&year_end=2000&corpus=16&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cduring%20periods%20of%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cin%20periods%20of%3B%2Cc0

In vs. During

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