How to Use "About" in the English Grammar (2024)

FAQs

How to Use "About" in the English Grammar? ›

About as a preposition. The most common meaning of about as a preposition is 'on the subject of' or 'connected with': Do you know anything about cricket? I'm very worried about my brother.

He never complains about the pain. Everybody was very concerned about the accident. I'm very excited about coming to France and I can't wait to see you. I'm very happy about my trip.

The main difference between of and about is that the preposition of implies a possessive quality while the preposition about implies concerning or on the subject of something.

Although they are both used to describe location or movement, around implies movement in a circular or curving path and about implies movement that is not specific or exact. Additionally, around can be used to describe something that is almost complete or nearly finished, while about has a more general meaning.

About as a preposition. The most common meaning of about as a preposition is 'on the subject of' or 'connected with': Do you know anything about cricket? I'm very worried about my brother.

Examples of about in a Sentence

Adverb We're about ready to go. This one is about as bad as that one. That's about all I know at this point. These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'about.

The preposition “about” is used to show the relationship between a subject and a topic, a subject and a location, or a subject and time.

However, it can work as a very short phrase: "Yourself?" "How about you?" is grammatically correct and works in both formal and informal settings. Normally a sentence should have a verb to be formally correct. The statement" how about you?" has no verb.

You need a comma before “or” when it connects two independent clauses. These are clauses that could stand alone as full sentences because each contains its own subject and verb. Example: Comma before “or” connecting two independent clauses Joso and I might go to the museum, or we might go to a café.

How about or what about grammar? ›

“How about” is most commonly used for giving suggestions. This means offering potential courses of action. "What about" can be used for suggestions as well, but it is less flexible.

The subject of a sentence tells your reader who or what the sentence is about. This can be a person, pronoun, place, or thing.

You can have “an opinion about” a controversy or the correctness of an argument or the quality of a movie, but if you want to express your general view of a person (that person's qualities, morals, competence, etc.), you would say you “have an opinion of” that person.

Author says about is more common in British English and around in American English, and that both carry the connotation of "rounded off to the nearest multiple of five".

In terms of language, however, 'at 3 pm' simply means at that time. But 'by 3pm' means more than that. It means before 3 pm or at the time or not later than.

I have no knowledge of the tourists' whereabouts. There is an overwhelming case for a check, because we have to know the whereabouts of everyone who has left care. Their whereabouts were unknown before the agency tried to find them. Wives and children do not know the whereabouts of their husbands and fathers.

(ˈwɛərəˌbaʊts ) adverb. 1. Also: whereabout. at what approximate location or place; where.

A sentence is a group of words which, when they are written down, begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark. Most sentences contain a subject and a verb. 2. variable noun.