Preposition debate

By William R. Jones

My departed Mexican friend, Aldo Sanchez, was once the Spanish language teacher par excellence at Jeju Foreign Language High School. His former students are well into their careers now. I hope that they shall read this and recall fond memories of him. Aldo also spoke English very well and one of our personal exchanges, eagerly discussed, was about whether “a fly is on the wall” meant the same thing as “a fly is against the wall.”

Such a concept may seem like nonsense and appear uninteresting to many, maybe, because “compare and contrast” is immediately understood. However, as wordsmiths, we like to engage in war of words. I miss my friend Aldo and our convoluted and inconsequential exchanges. Although perhaps not convincing, our reasoning and conclusion concerning the matter follows.

In the case given, “on” and “against” are prepositions and “wall” is the object of them. They are used as function words expressing primarily grammatical relationships. Both prepositions have multiple uses, however here, the meaning for both is to indicate position in contact with and supported by any outer surface (or simply to tell the location of something). For the present semantics here, let's stick to “wall” as the outer surface.

Possibly, you might think that if the fly is against the wall (one-angle vertical flat surface), then conversely, it follows that it could be on the wall. In any event, things are a bit different should the wall have more than one face or side, e.g., a cube. Now, suppose the fleeting evasive fly is located at the top surface of the cubed wall, and you told me it was against the wall. I would not look for it on the top surface until I had searched the four available sides.

If in a four-wall living room and you told me the fly was on the wall, I could ask “Which wall?” But, most likely I'd swivel my eyes in quick survey and pivot to spot it. However, if you delineated that the fly was not “on,” but “against” the wall and wished for me to swat it, then, I must be clever and understand that the fly is somewhere on the floor or ceiling leaning against the wall. However, I feel it would be difficult, even for a fly to adhere to a ceiling and lean simultaneously.

What is the bottom line usage? Well, “on” came into writing before the 12th century, and “against' appeared in writing during the 13th century. Thus, “on the wall” seems most likely to have been spoken first or written first, but I cannot give a citation.

Be that as it may, “against” could be appropriate were the object of the preposition be another noun or pronoun, e.g., “you.” The fly is on you is quite clear, however, the fly is against you implies that it is merely touching beside you. Nevertheless, what is most important is that the fly does not “catch on to you!” (i.e., your determined intention of getting rid of it)!

The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella “Beyond Harvard” and presently teaches ESL.