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There is a scatter plot with many points, referred to as "chart".

Which of the following is correct:

Move the cursor over a point in the chart.

or

Move the cursor over a point on the chart.

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    "Point in the chart" would be very rare, if used at all. "On the chart" is far more idiomatic.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Dec 28, 2015 at 23:46
  • @hot-licks Thank you! I was confused because of the "in the picture" / "on the picture" thing.
    – Vladimir Kovalenko
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 0:02
  • Yeah, it can be confusing.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 0:04
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    @HotLicks: I was going to say that "point in the chart" sounds more natural to me. I don't know how scientific this method is, but a google search of "point in the chart" (with quotes) gives 1,000,000 hits while "point on the chart" gives 770,000 hits.
    – James
    Commented Dec 29, 2015 at 12:49

2 Answers 2

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Since there's no accepted answer, I'll give it a try.

As a native speaker (from Canada), both sound perfectly normal to me and I've heard them used interchangeably.

Here is my take on why:

In a 3-dimentional space, "in" vs. "on" would change the meaning. For example, "on the box" means "on top", whereas "in" means "inside".

However, a screen is a 2-dimensional space. So "in the chart" means "inside the space occupied by the chart". And since you can't put anything "on top" of something else in a 2-dimentional space, "on the chart" ends up meaning the same thing.

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In this case, a point 'in' the chart is clearer. The cursor is 'on' the chart.

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  • What evidence do you have for this assertion?
    – curiousdannii
    Commented Dec 30, 2015 at 0:45

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