I enjoyed your response: Good pun
Diane
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 11:52 AM, Spruiell, William C
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I'm used to hearing "in quest of..." as an equivalent for "in pursuit
> of..." -- I'm wondering if "in a quest" is the result of "on a quest"
> blurring into "in quest of," rather like we've recently gotten a lot of
> examples of "on accident" from the collision (I know, bad pun) between
> "by accident" and "on purpose."
>
> Bill Spruiell
> Dept. of English
> Central Michigan University
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of MC Johnstone
> Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 6:41 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: On a quest
>
> Claudia Kiburz wrote:
>> For me the differences are in focus.
>>
>> "In a quest": One has been placed into a quest.Focus might be more on
>> how one got there, not where one is going. It seems more static. I
>> would not use it very often. "We are in this quest now because our
>> teacher told us to find some information."
>
> I did a cursory search on Google, plain vanilla, for "in a quest" and
> "on a quest". Both turned up around a quarter of a million hits,
> surprisingly with "in a quest" scoring the slightly higher number. I'd
> never heard "in a quest" before, but I've been living in a non-English
> speaking country for fifteen years now so I've missed out on quite a
> lot. From looking at them briefly, they seem to be interchangeable. I
> suspect that some people use "in" while others use "on" and never the
> twain shall meet.
>
> Mark
>>
>>
>> "On a quest": One has decided to go after something. The focus is on
>> the end.
>>
>> "In quest of": The focus is on process
>>
>> However, the last two could be interchangeable; again, one might wish
>> to use one rather than the other for focus, as I hear the phrases.
>>
>> We are now "in quest of" more input on this topic ... no end in sight.
>>
>> */Dee Allen-Kirkhouse <[log in to unmask]>/* wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>> My colleague has a question raised by her high school seniors who
>> want to know the difference between "in a quest" and "on a
>> quest." I say "in quest of" and "on a quest for," but they may
>> be the same idea. Also "in a quest" seems to be equivalent to
>> being in the process of a quest. Any thoughts?
>>
>> Dee
>>
>>
>> Dee Allen-Kirkhouse
>>
>>
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