I am going to make up two sentences.
I want to talk to you about my travel plan later today.
I want to talk to you later today about my travel plan.
Which one is grammatically correct?
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1Both are fine. Suit yourself. A statement such as: I want to talk to you about my travel plans next week would be ambiguous. But this doesn't arise in your examples.– Ronald SoleCommented May 11, 2017 at 19:10
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Agreed, both are fine, neither is better.– AndrewCommented May 11, 2017 at 19:12
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They're not necessarily equivalent. Although in practice #1 might be used interchangeably with #2, it could mean I want to talk to you now about the plan I have for the traveling I will be doing later today. But #2 could never have that meaning - it's completely unambiguous.– FumbleFingersCommented May 11, 2017 at 20:45
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I wonder sometimes why we get so many questions that read, "Which one is correct?" as though somehow one of them must be right and the other therefore wrong. English just doesn't work that way.– J.R. ♦Commented May 13, 2017 at 8:13
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1 Answer
Both are correct. One is more clear.
The concept of "when to talk" and "what to talk about" are both adverbs modifying the verb "talk". If you put the "when" after the "Travel Plans" you introduce some uncertainty, because the travel plans could be made more specific by including a time that the plan is for. Maybe you're modifying the travel plans with "when".
You could eliminate that uncertainty by putting the "when" after "Talk" rather than "Travel plans".
So "I want to talk to you later today about my travel plan." is less ambiguous.
