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Upon jumping over the puddle...

On jumping over the puddle...

Is the jump completed or underway? And do the prepositions on and upon have the same meaning in that respect?

Upon jumping over the puddle she misjudged how wide it was and stepped into the water.

On jumping over the puddle she misjudged how wide it was and stepped into the water.

Are both sentences idiomatic? Only one of them? Neither of them?

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  • Are you asking about those two exact phrases, or are you trying to learn how "upon" and "on" work?
    – gotube ♦
    Commented Oct 13, 2023 at 17:36
  • On or upon is the same thing but upon is more formal and in writing.
    – Lambie
    Commented Oct 13, 2023 at 17:44
  • I am asking about the aspectual aspects, if any, of upon|on with an -ing form. Is the action completed or underway?
    – TimR on some device
    Commented Oct 13, 2023 at 18:57

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Either preposition (or none) is fine for the OP's context. There's virtually no difference between on and upon except that the latter is a bit more "literary, poetic", so it would be unlikely in a conversational context.

One slight difference between including a preposition before the participle clause (doing something) or not is that the preposition-based versions tend to imply immediately after doing it, where no preposition often implies while doing it.

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  • If the prepositions imply immediately after, i.e. the act has been completed, don't those sentences seem discordant? Immediately after jumping over the puddle she misjudged how wide it was?
    – TimR on some device
    Commented Oct 13, 2023 at 16:56
  • On jumping over the puddle she misjudged how wide it was is a highly suspect utterance! (Precisely because of that immediately after implication.) More sensibly, On attempting to jump over the puddle she misjudged how wide it was (and failed to jump over it).
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 13, 2023 at 18:12
  • @FumbleFingers Hi! I upvoted your good answer! I am very sad because you didn't give me your email address.
    – Marios Athanasiou
    Commented Oct 14, 2023 at 10:15
  • @FumbleFingers Hi! In that question you said that the sentence "We did not find differences between their reports" is less likely.How you know that? [1]:ell.stackexchange.com/questions/341751/no-vs-not-any
    – Marios Athanasiou
    Commented Oct 17, 2023 at 7:37
  • @MariosAthanasiou: I know because I'm a native speaker, But here's a relevant usage chart if you need convincing.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Oct 17, 2023 at 10:06

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