0

As I know one of the way for useing ON is when we are in a big place, and we are on the floor like:

I'm on the train.

And we use IN when we are in a small place, surrounded by walls or anything like that. Like:

I'm in Taxi.

And sometimes we use both of them. Like:

I am in/on boat.

But we always have some exceptions in English. Let's look at this one:

I am in Australia.

Personally I think there is a relationship between what we called "Metonymy" and these sentences.

I live in Australia (means I live in a room, in a part of my home, my home is in a part of a city, my city is a part of this country).

I left my keys behind in house (means I left that behind in a part of my house).

We make them part to part. Because of this reason we use IN Australia. Is this personal idea correct or not?

Improve this question
2
  • 1
    "I left my keys in home" is not correct. Try: "in my house" or "at home".
    – Billy Kerr
    Commented Aug 6, 2023 at 18:20
  • 1
    on and in don't really have any connection to "big" or "small" places. The choice depends on whether the (usually, metaphoric) context relates to a surface or a container. So I live in Europe (big place) or I live on a small island. But I live on the continent (big place), or I live in a small village
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Aug 6, 2023 at 19:54

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

No, there's no metonomy here.

For countries and continents, we almost always use in, not on.

We sometimes use on for an island (My friends live in/on Anglesey, the Isle of Man, Crete, Vancouver Island), but not generally when the island is a country (My friends live in Ireland, Iceland, Cyprus, Cuba, not "on").

A couple of minor points about your post:

I'm in a taxi.

(but I came by taxi, without an article)

and in my house or even in my home but never in home - we would say rather at home. Similarly we don't normally say to home, but rather the adverb home (I am at home, I went home).

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.