On or of

Question

0  What is the correct preposition in the following sentence? I guess both  'on' and 'of' would be fine. There maybe a shift in the meaning when  you change the preposition 'on' to 'of'.02br00  Your comments are welcome.02br02br02br00  1.There are many people and organizations to keep track on the government activities.02br02br00  2.There are many people and organizations to keep track of the government activities.0-

Demetrius · Accepted Answer

0 01blockquote

01cite10Rex12cite10What is the correct preposition in the following sentence? I guess both 'on' and 'of' would be fine. There maybe a shift in the meaning when you change the preposition 'on' to 'of'.12br
10Your comments are welcome.12br
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101.There are many people and organizations to keep track on the government activities.12br
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102.There are many people and organizations to keep track of the government activities.12br
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12blockquote

10My personal preference is "keep track of", but there is no difference in correctness or meaning. As a side point, both sentences are ungrammatical though. "Government" requires the definite article (and capitalisation) if you are using it as a noun, whereas "activities" does not. So you must either decide to use "government" as an adjective describing "activities" and omit the definite article, or decide to use "government" as a proper noun in the genitive case and include the definite article.02br
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00In the former case you would write: "There are many people and organizations to keep track of government activities."02br
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00In the latter case you would write: "There are many people and organizations to keep track of the Government's activities."02br
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00There is a possible exception to this rule. The sentences could be correct in the context of particular activities referred to earlier. In other words, if we were talking about "the government activities (related to the investigation of Mr. X)" then they are OK. But it is hard to imagine these sentences being written as they stand in such a context.0-

Rex · Answer

0 Demetrius02br
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00 You gave me a very interesting answer and pushed me to delve into my grammars.02br
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00 Let us say talk about a watchdog.02br
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00 They are keeping a prying eye on the activities of governments/organizations.02br
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00 That is why I thought the preposition 'on' is the best choice. Our focus is on activities. You thought the prepostion 'of' is the best choice!02br
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00 You touched on the topic of the capitalization and the article.02br
00 Let us talk about a large company. You and I will find a lot of employees who are keen on what the management is doing.02br
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00 (4) There are many people to keep track of the company's activities.02br
00 Would you insist to write the word '' Company's '' here?02br
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00 You went on describing the difference between keeping the article and omitting the article. It is very interesting, as far as I am concerned.02br
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00 You said the word 'government' needs to capitalize and needs the article if it is to be a noun. Why is that? Forget the word 'government' and write the word 'company'. 02br
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00 If you just write the word 'company' , you don't have to capitalize. By the same token the word 'government' doesn't need to be capitalize. Of course organizations like '' FAO '' OR ''UNIDO '' needs the capital letters. We don't write 'unido' or 'fao'.02br
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00 5. Our employees are very interested in the company's activities. 02br
00 6. Our employees are very interested in the activities of the comapny. 02br
02br
00 [ We are strictly speaking about a company and its employees here.] 02br
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02br
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CalifJim · Answer

0 The second sentence is the one with the correct use of "keep track".02br
00 The idioms are "keep track of" and "keep an eye on" or "keep tabs on".02br
00It's easy to confuse them! 05002br
02br
00 CJ010id1

Rex · Answer

0 00Thanks CalifJim for the reply. I hope   														  														  															  																  																	  																		Demetrius will answer the rest.0-

Demetrius · Answer

0 01blockquote

01cite10Rex12cite10Demetrius12br
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10You touched on the topic of the capitalization and the article.12br
10Let us talk about a large company. You and I will find a lot of employees who are keen on what the management is doing.12br
12br
10(4) There are many people to keep track of the company's activities.12br
10 Would you insist to write the word '' Company's '' here?12br
12blockquote

10Sorry, I think I have misled you. I didn't mean to imply that you must capitalize wherever you use the definite article. You only capitalize proper nouns - the names of people, places or things. In your example sentence, " the company's" is not capitalized, because although it is a particular company, it is not the 01b01u00name02u02b00 of a particular company. If you were to write "...the Widget Company's activities", then you would capitalize.02br
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00By the way, your question should be "Would you insist on writing the word "Company's" here?"01blockquote

01cite10Rex12cite10You went on describing the difference between keeping the article and omitting the article. It is very interesting, as far as I am concerned.12br
12br
10You said the word 'government' needs to capitalize and needs the article if it is to be a noun. Why is that? Forget the word 'government' and write the word 'company'. 12br
12blockquote

10It's a subtle point. The truth is that it depends on context, and I have over-simplified by taking the context to be the usual one. When we refer to "the Government", we are normally referring not only to a 01b01u00particular02u02b00 government but to the 01b01u00name02u02b00 of that government. So we capitalize it. When we refer to "the company", we 01b01u00usually02u02b00 mean a particular company but not the 01b01u00name02u02b00 of that company. For example, the name of my government is "the British Government", and unless there was an ambiguity as to which government I meant, I would write it as "the Government". It is a usage convention. I am promoting the noun to the status of a proper noun as a special case.02br
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00However, there are exceptions. If it is clear from context that "the company" always refers to one particular company, and my audience understands this, it is permissible for me to write "the Company's activities", because I am now indicating that I am referring to the name of that company. This might happen in a legal document, or in other special cases. For example, in eighteenth-century British diplomatic circles, the British East India Company was often referred to simply as "the Company".01blockquote

01cite10Rex12cite10If you just write the word 'company' , you don't have to capitalize. By the same token the word 'government' doesn't need to be capitalize. Of course organizations like '' FAO '' OR ''UNIDO '' needs the capital letters. We don't write 'unido' or 'fao'.12br
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105. Our employees are very interested in the company's activities. 12br
106. Our employees are very interested in the activities of the comapny. 12br
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10[ We are strictly speaking about a company and its employees here.] 12br
12blockquote

10What you say is correct, but I hope I have clarified my point now.01blockquote

01cite10Rex12cite12blockquote

10I am English, and my native tongue is British English.0-

Rex · Answer

0 Demetrius02br
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00 I am very proud of your prowess in English. You are very clever at English. Our friend CalifJim is also a clever man.02br
00 Now I must rush to the gym. I am training 3 times a week at a gym. 02br
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00 I must peruse your answer.02br
00 I will post again if there is anything not clear to me. So please keep a watch on this thread.0-

Rex · Answer

0 00 02br
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00Demetrius02br
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00What is interesting to learn from you is that the word 'government' should be 'Government'.02br
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00Thanks to the usage it has become a proper noun. So the word government considerd a proper noun. You ought to write 'Governement'. How do I know these things!02br
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00I wonder whether all those who represents Uncle Sam would toe the line with you.02br
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00You wrote the words British East India Company. We have a tendency to capitalize things, organizations, etc which has some historical value. I have learnt this way. I maybe wrong. We write the Second World War and not the second world war.02br
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00Americans, Britsh and some other nations fought a war and ousted President Saddam Hussein. I am sure this war will lead for posterity. In 50 years time, people would use some words like 'Iraq War of........'.02br
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00The falkland war is not very old. Today people write 'Falkland War'. I think this took place in early 80s.02br
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00I always write 'Polish government, German government, Italian government, etc. This is incorrect.02br
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00I know one should write the British Prime Minister, the French President, etc. It would be a bit odd to write the British prime minster, the French president, etc.02br
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00The Britsh Prime Minster is correct but not the British Diplomats, the British Engineers, the British Politicians, the British Chiminey Sweepers, etc.02br
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00It should be the Britsh Prime Minster, the British diplomats, the British engineers, the British politicians, the British chiminey sweepers, etc.02br
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00[Please correct me if I am wrong.]02br
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00So if a jourmalist wrote the words 'our government's policy on Iraq or Iran' , it is not 100% correct. One has to write ' our Govenment's policy on Iraq or Iran'.02br
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00I thank you for pointing out the mistake of writing ' 'Would you insist to writing' . It shold be 'Would you insist on writing'. I am a careless man; so prone to make stupid mistakes.02br
0-

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