I wrote two weeks ago that the choice of the right preposition was one mark of idiomatic English. I’ve seen ample proof in recent months that the nation which invented that language does not actually know it very well.

Often my source has been the London Times — not that it’s worse than other dailies, I suspect, but it is the one I read; a once-great paper whose subediting has followed its general slide down-market. I’ve found mitigate for militate there; in its book section, nay, I’ve even found a reference to the poets “Haussman, Shakespeare and Milton”. Not a matter of grammar, I grant, but the paper’s (highly literate) books editor must have groaned to see that someone further down the heap was illiterate enough not, it seems, to have heard of A.E. Housman.

Back with prepositions, the villain of the piece is often the invasive to. British sports journalists now almost habitually write Chelsea’s defeat to Wigan, when they mean by; though, happily, they haven’t got round to Wigan’s victory to Chelsea, where over still rules. Last Saturdays’ Times brought a novelty weird even by sportspeak standards: cricket’s obsession on being the new football, to join fed up of and bored of. Poor old with.

Equally, I’ve met A being a substitute to B, in place of for. And quite often phrases such as the secret to good cooking is good ingredients, rather than of. But here the subtleties begin. It’s perfectly correct — don’t ask me why — to write there is a secret to good cooking. Equally, you can say there must be a solution to this problem. In both these latter cases, of would be wrong — even though you would normally (but not invariably) say the solution of the problem was...

Such subtleties are common. Did Graham Greene write a novel called The End to the Affair? Of course not, he used of. Yet his heroine decided to put an end to the affair — and no other preposition would be right in such a phrase.

There are oddities of spelling too. I once knew a style book which declared that into must always be so spelt, in one word, but on to always in two. Nonsense, twice over. Witness phrases such as he handed his paper in to the invigilator or we drove onto the tarmac, quite a different notion from we drove on to the lake, meaning until we reached it. The basic rule here is that if in or on really belongs with the verb, then split them from to; if they naturally belong with to, as part of a single preposition, join the word up. He ran into his father means one thing; he opened the door and ran in to his father means another.

Beside (that is, close to) and besides (that is, in addition to) are often confused. In old English, indeed, beside often did duty in either sense. But these days the two are best kept distinct. Americans love prepositions. Britons head a group or free a space; Americans head up and free up. A Briton may beat his wife and perhaps beat up her lover; an American might beat up on both. The Briton will then stand outside the house (or if he’s a keen Scot, outwith), the Yank outside of it; though both, in colloquial Britspeak and often in America, could well run out the front gate, as against out of it. A New York building is on 42nd Street, a London one in Regent Street — though the American on is rapidly gaining ground in Britain.

Like a lot of Americanisms, that on today sounds fine to many of my compatriots, but it’s not fine by me. And in my youth it wouldn’t have been fine for any Briton trying to please some well-read examiner. For once — though not at once — I’m with the pedants; on their side, that is, though not at it.