I am confused between 'within' and 'upon':
Within/Upon my curiosity, I asked my fellow tutor who lives in the USA.
Which one is appropriate, within or upon? Could anyone explain why?
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How did you come up with within or upon as possibilities? Within often is used in time or location phrases, and upon is often used to denote a following event. Curiosity is more of a state or condition.– user3169Jun 16, 2015 at 20:34
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Both those phrases are for locations - real of metaphoric. You need a bit more to use them and it changse the whole tenor of the sentence: "Within my research, I happened upon a curiosity that prompted me to ask my fellow tutor, whom lives in the USA." This, of course, is reading far into your statement and adding information that may not be intended. Maybe: "It piqued my curiosity, therefore I asked..." Getting Within/Upon to work with the phrasing you have is nearly impossible.– Michael DorganJun 16, 2015 at 21:36
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1 Answer
Both sound weird to me as a British English speaker, although I'm not totally sure that I understand what you want to say.
- "upon my curiosity" sounds like you have a "curiosity" (an interesting object) that you want to perform some act upon;
- "within my curiosity" doesn't make sense to me.
I assume that you want something like one of the following:
As I was curious, I asked my fellow tutor, who lives in the USA.
Out of curiosity, I asked my fellow tutor, who lives in the USA.
I was curious, so I asked my fellow tutor, who lives in the USA.
