I always use the preposition on before a bus. But today when I was reading a novel (The Bridge Across Forever) I noticed the writer used the preposition in before a bus so I got confused and landed here to get some help on it.
A still from the novel-
No sooner had I fallen asleep in the bus?
I guess, I know why the writer used the preposition in before the bus but I just want to make sure that my point is correct. I thought, experts could help me in a much better way so I landed here.
Both prepositions are correct but have slightly different meanings here, depending on how the author considers the bus. The interpretation also depends on context1.
"On the bus" considers the bus functionally as a form of transport.
"In the bus" emphasises that the bus is a place.
So if I read that someone "fell asleep in the bus", my first impression is that the bus is not in use (maybe it is abandoned somewhere, or maybe the character in the novel broke into the bus company's parking lot and got on a bus at night).
If I read instead that someone "fell asleep on that bus", I imagine it to be a bus that is in use as transportation, so the character caught the bus and fell asleep while it travelled to its destination.
(so far as I can think, this use of on is limited to forms of transportation. One can be on a bus, on a ship or on a plane, while actually being inside. As others have pointed out, if you said you were "on that house" you would be standing on the roof.
You can use both "on" and "in".
Though we often hear people using the former, "in" is just as appropriate. Logically, we would expect it to be "in" but "on" is a commonly used collocation while talking about Buses, Trains etc.
I personally feel "in" refers more to the inside of the bus itself and that's how I would probably interpret it, at first glance, if I ever come across such usage.
