Geekery, cont.

After Stefanie's comment I realize that I didn't quite accomplish what I set out to do with my last post, so here is a hearty supplement. I will continue to use Latin examples because it is the only non-English language in which I feel I have some grammatical authority. Sorry, Spanish students, I'm neither as normal nor as practical as you, and you have my respect.

What I mean by "an effect on how we associate ideas" is something like this:

The Latin verb curo means "care for." Not "care," like the English verb, but "care for." The prepositional idea of "for" is part of the verb. Curo can take a direct object in the objective [1] case with no preposition or inflection. This means that in Latin, the idea of caring is much closer to the direction of the action than in English. When a Roman used the word for "care," it was assumed that there was a person or object receiving the care. There was more emphasis on the receiver, and maybe less on the giver, than there is in English.

We have something similar with some English verbs, although we still say the preposition. Take the phrase "fed up." The verb "fed" doesn't have the same meaning if it is not used with the preposition; they are linked into one idea. A sentence using "fed up" sounds strange and clumsy if you treat "up" as a normal preposition and separate it from the verb: That is the sort of mean-spirited criticism up with which I am fed. [2]

In general, we are a preposition-happy language, which means we isolate ideas from verbs into prepositional phrases. Latin is verb-friendly: the verb often has meanings other than the action attached, and many more words in any given sentence will be somehow directly associated with the verb. Just think about it. It's fascinating, really.

[1] Actually the accusative case in Latin, but objective is the English equivalent here. Most of you probably don't care either way, hence the footnoteage.

[2] Winston Churchill's rebuttal upon being corrected for less-than-perfect preposition placement.