let's talk about prepositional phrases:

what they are, and how they're used.

Their care and feeding, you know.

So a prepositional phrase, simply speaking,

is anything that follows a preposition, frankly.

So, if we look at the sentence:

Danielle blew the horn with the strength of a giant-

quick little doodle there.

There's Danielle blowing the horn

with the strength of a giant.

So this part with the strength

of a giant, is a prepositional phrase.

Actually, it's two prepositional phrases,

because there's with the strength,

and then, of a giant.

What is a prepositional phrase?

It is a word chunk that begins

with a preposition.

So, with is a preposition, of is a preposition,

and this entire thing, with the strength of a giant,

is one prepositional phrase, altogether,

composed of two smaller ones.

And what's cool, is you can use

prepositional phrases in a couple

of different ways.

You can use them as nouns.

You can use them as adverbs.

And you can use them as adjectives.

So we've got two different examples here,

just even within this first sentence here.

So Danielle blew the horn with the strength

of a giant. How did she blow the horn?

With the strength of a giant.

And so she blew the horn

with the strength of a giant.

So, with the strength of a giant,

this prepositional phrase is modifying

the verb blew.

You can really see, her hair's

being blown back just by the strength

of this (trumpet noise).

So this whole thing together is being treated

as an adverb, but if we look

at the word strength, strength

is being modified by of a giant.

So this is a noun, right, the word strength

is a noun, but this of a giant thing

is modifying it, so this part

is actually behaving as an adjective.

Kinda cool, right?

Let's look at some more examples.

To steal the queen's diamonds

would be a terrible crime.

This is actually something we'd call,

in addition to being a prepositional phrase,

this is something we'd call an infinitive.

The verb to steal, when it's presented like this,

in the to form never conjugates.

It's not affected by time, so it's

kind of infinitive and infinite.

But we are treating this whole thing

as a noun, right, because

to steal the queen's diamonds

is kind of all being considered one thing,

this big, old prepositional phrase,

would, right, to steal the queen's diamonds

would be a terrible crime.

So, this prepositional phrase is acting

like a noun.

Let's try another one.

I don't know what that is,

I just made it up.

Let's pay attention to how

the prepositional phrase of glass

works in the rest of the sentence.

You know, what part of this

is it attached to?

It's not I of glass, or enjoy of glass.

It's the cathedral of glass,

and that means that this of glass thing

is describing cathedral.

A cathedral is a place or a structure,

so it's a noun, right, so if of glass

is modifying this noun, that would make it

an adjective.

So of glass here, this prepositional phrase,

is behaving like an adjective.

Prepositional phrases can be really powerful

and really elegant, and really cool.

Like in Hamlet, in the "to be, or not to be"

speech, Hamlet describes death as

the undiscovered country, from whose bourn,

no traveler returns.

And bourn is an Early Modern English word

meaning, like, boundary.

What Hamlet is saying in the soliloquy

is that death is a mystery.

People don't come back from it.

And I think that's like a really powerful

use of a prepositional phrase.

All of this is describing country

in a way that undiscovered is also doing.

So country is being modified from both sides,

which is really cool, and it imbues

the word country with a really strange power.

But, you have to be careful

because you can set yourself up

for a lot of ambiguity

with prepositional phrases.

You may remember this terrible joke

from Mary Poppins. One man says,

"I knew a man with a wooden leg named Smith."

Other guy says, "But what was the name of his other leg?"

It's silly, but it's a good way to indicate

where confusion can arise

with prepositional phrases.

So I would say, generally, that the solution

to a problem like this is to just put

the named Smith part earlier in the sentence.

I knew a man named Smith who had a wooden leg.

Maybe lose the prepositional phrase.

That solves the problem.

What I'm trying to say is, prepositional phrases

are very powerful, but you have to be careful

about how you use them, because

if you're not careful, you can create

confusion or ambiguity.

Anyway, you can learn anything.

Sorry for the terrible cockney accent.

David out.