2

Reference:

•> I washed dishes from morning to night for which unexciting work I was paid £3 an hour.

More:

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What is your suggestion as for how to think of which preposition is more appropriate to use before "which/whom"? There are two sentences I want to merge with, united becomes one sentence. The second one becomes an identifying/a non-identifying clause which describes the main clause.

What I do, usually, I write the sentences down first or just think about them in my head, and I determine the preposition that comes after the verb/adjective in the second sentence.

So, for example, the sentence before the number 1 (see above), there is a verb "paid" and I can think of the preposition "for", because -> (pay + for + something), then I can assure myself that the correct preposition is for and put it before which. 2 steps basically.

Is there the easiest way to do this, especially for the sentences that has similar construction to number 3 and 5? In that case, I can't determine the correct prepositions because, in my view, it's unkown, meaning I don't know where I should match the preposition with. Someone told me that this is something I should learn by heart, but I believe there must be a way to learn the pattern. Hope you can help me. Thanks. Since, I have the answer key, it's not necessary to directly give me the answers. I only need to know how I should think to choose the correct prepositions.

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  • 1
    For 1. we would more naturally say "by which time".
    – BillJ
    Mar 28, 2022 at 6:49
  • Quite right, @BillJ. Thanks. I'll edit my answer.
    – Old Brixtonian
    Mar 28, 2022 at 8:41
  • I think it is worth noting that some of these sound stilted/extremely formal. "At which time" and "in which case" are not uncommon, but "for which unexciting work I was paid £3 an hour" is not something I would imagine anybody saying in conversation. ("...for which I was paid £3 an hour" is better.)
    – nschneid
    Mar 30, 2022 at 4:16
  • @nschneid thanks for the suggestion.
    – user516076
    Mar 30, 2022 at 4:18

1 Answer 1

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I think doing it in two steps is a good idea.

It might help if you construct an intermediate sentence using "that".

...morning to night. For that work...
...midnight. By that time...
...closed. In that case...
...to Calais. After that...
...extremely fast. At that point...
...Ambassador to Uraguay. In that post...

Then replace "that" with "which", and see if it works.

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  • Wow genius! I didn't think of that! Thanks a lot!
    – user516076
    Mar 28, 2022 at 3:28
  • I think "after" would also work as a preposition in that sentence: "After which unexciting work, I was paid..." And for the Uruguay post, I think "at" is the better preposition ("at which pleasant post he spent the next five years.")
    – user8356
    Mar 28, 2022 at 19:54
  • @user8356: [Washing dishes]: You are paid an hourly rate for a job: not "after" it. [Uruguay]: The use of "at" (in this context) only began 80 years after "in". Ngram1. Although the use of "at" originated in the US, even there it's less used than "in". Ngram2. Why do you find it better?
    – Old Brixtonian
    Mar 29, 2022 at 13:00

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