Around and About

In a recent Advertising Age article about AOL’s projected hiring of hundreds of journalists, one sentence reads: “As an example, the Life network will include sites such as Kitchen Daily and Stylist; Family will include content around parents, kids, tweens, teens and pets.”

Why do so many writers use around in this sloppy way when there’s a simple and appropriate word — about — that begs to be employed instead? “Content around parents . . .” incongruously suggests that parents, kids, tweens, teens and pets are separate islands in an imaginary Content Lake.

For some reason, prepositions — the simple linking words we’ve used all our lives — are taking a beating in print today. They are constantly ignored, overused or confused with other members of their extended family.

Writers use to when they mean from (“My conclusion was different to hers”) and of when they mean with (“I am bored of this”).

Poor little two-letter on is often scorned for the grander-seeming (but usually unnecessary) upon.

At and of, on the other hand, have long been popular favorites, tacked on for emphasis where they aren’t needed. (“Where’s he at?” “I paid too high of a price.”)

Of often goes slumming with off. (“It fell off of the table.”)

Sometimes, a needed preposition goes AWOL, as in “He wrote her to explain” and “She graduated college.”

Meanwhile, around has become the workhorse of the preposition world.

The English language is in constant flux, of course, New usages are always creeping into formal writing, whether grammarians like them or not. But I wonder what it is about around that makes it so popular. Do people instinctively prefer its vagueness? Or its spatial quality?

It's a mystery to me.