Greetings to all my dear teachers on English Club,
First, are following sentences correct, please?
1. My job is teacher of school in Tehran.
2. My job is school teacher in Tehran.
Second, I have a doubt about this subject that " Teacher of school" is correct or "School teacher" or both?
Thanks in advance and best wishes,
Bijan
Replies
Dear Danny!
Thank you so much for answering my question kindly, but sorry I cannot get why "Teacher of school' is wrong?
As far as I know we can use "of" for showing something or someone belongs to something or someone. Please, look at these following examples:
1. The girlfriend of my brother ( OR my brother's girlfriend).
2. Children of Marry and Tom ( OR Tom and Mary's children).
3. University of Tehran (OR Tehran 's university).
If these examples are correct, why is "Teacher of school" incorrect grammatically?
Thanks in advance,
Bijan
Dear Bijan, Danny left for a business trip this morning. I hope you don't mind my answering instead of him.
You are right about 'of' and two first examples are correct. But the last is not. The university doesn't belong to a city. It is located in the city. So, the possessive form is wrong. We say "Tehran University." The same is about a teacher. He is not a school ownership, he woks there. In this case as well as in the example about university, we use a noun as an attribute of another noun.
Dear Tanya,
First, thank you for helping me kindly.
Second, if we accept the university doesn't belong to a city and the possessive form is wrong, I'm surprised why has Wikipedia used "University of Tehran"?
Here is the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Tehran
Thanks in advance and best wishes,
Hi Bijan
I see that I'm sounding off here two years after your post but I'd like to comment on these.
1. The girlfriend of my brother ( OR my brother's girlfriend).
2. Children of Marry and Tom ( OR Tom and Mary's children).
3. University of Tehran (OR Tehran 's university).
If these examples are correct, why is "Teacher of school" incorrect grammatically?
I'm from Vancouver, Canada and have taught grammar for over 20 years. I have a different opinion about your question.
The first two are understandable but not the fluent native speaker way of expressing those ideas.
I would always say my sister's husband and never say the husband of my sister.
The preposition "of" is commonly used in the namesof Universities...for example, The University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia.
These are names and the rules of grammar don't apply. In two word job titles, the work place usually comes first then the specific (or almost specific) job or task title. So, we have a police officer, bus driver, school teacher and goverenrment official, for example, and not the other way round. Cheers Ralph
Thank you so much for answering my question kindly,
Bijan
Dear Bijan! The correct is A SCHOOL TEACHER.
So, the correct sentences are:
1. My job in Tehran is a school teacher.
2. I am a school teacher from Tehran (if you introduce yousrself in the international society).