By Eva van Loon

Once upon a time there was a slender little English preposition named Of. She had no business starting her name with a capital letter, naturally, since prepositions never do that, even in titles, but she was a restless, rebellious little thing who sneaked into all sorts Of linguistic crannies where she had no business. Being so small, she figured she could get away with stunts the bigger prepositions, like her mother from, her uncles under and above, and especially fat old Aunty between, could never have pulled off.

Defying her tutor, the Grammar Gremlin, was Of’s favourite game. One day halfway through the last century Of found a costume in a back room that made the sound uh but looked like the letter a. She tried it on and found it had velcro straps that easily attached to passing big words, particularly nouns.

“Lotta!” Of crowed. “Buncha! Groupa! Lotsa! Alla! Fulla!” Impaired verbs were fun to swing with, too: “Woulda! Coulda! Shoulda!” Even the odd kinky pronoun could be persuaded, as in “Who’da thunk it?”

What a mischief Of is! Look what she’s doing- bolding all her preposition family members. She’d blacken all fifty-four of their names if I tempted her by putting them into this story.

She had found her freedom, and swung happily through noun and verb society, high and low, at the opera and in the pubs, blithely ignoring Grammar Gremlin, who struggled after her as she partied, shouting, “Of! Of, I say! Say your full name, you little-! And will you please put something on!”

Too late! Even as Grammar Gremlin raged, awash in a tide of hippyisms, Of exchanged the fateful Look with a dreamboat preposition. There he stood, invincible on his double fs, so like Of and yet…so thrillingly different. She sidled up to him. “My name rhymes with love,” she suggested softly.

“Mine rhymes with scoff,” he replied sternly, lantern-jawed with those matching bars across his fs. “And boff, cough, doff, prof, toff, trough, and sometimes Geoff, not to mention, in German, Hof, and, in virtually all languages, effoff.”

Swept off her f by his erudition, Of threw herself into his crossbars-or woulda, had she not realised at the last moment the extreme attractiveness of Off’s rump. Oh, my goodness! Now there was a great place to attach oneself! Of slipped around to the back of Off and whispered, “We could make such beautiful phonemes together!”

“How awful!” screeched Grammar Gremlin.

“Baby!” Off seized the moment and her handy f-bar at the same instant. “This thing is bigger than both of us!”

“Noooooooo!” wailed Grammar Gremlin. “This isn’t English-it’s…it’s…it’s offal!”

“Poor little old English,” laughed Of heartlessly, and Off laughed with her. They danced the night away in the Englese Pub and he caught her up every time in those strong f-bars.

“Awful,” they sang in a new harmony. “It’s just awful. Don’t fall offa alla this offal.”

Grammar Gremlin had a nervous breakdown in the washroom, sobbing into the sink. “They don’t understand! Prepositions must never, ever, ever marry prepositions! The language will die! It’s bad genetics!”

Only your faithful reporter listened to Grammar Gremlin, out of pity for someone who could not appreciate the writing on the pub’s bathroom wall.

Watch out for those naughty prepositions! Especially Of, who’s always ready for dirty dancing.