When I'm reading Japanese speakers English content I see a lot of phrases where "of" is used to link two nouns that seems awkward where placing the second noun before the first seems more natural. The opposite case also occurs. For example:
future story (awkward?)
story of the future
workplace of each other (awkward?)
each other's workplace
There are cases where either seem appropriate:
Secretary of State
State Secretary
Are there any grammar rules that apply here that can used to explain this use of "of", or is more or less case-by-case?
Searching on the Internet for "of" is not very useful.
Thanks!
Replies
Dear friend, one part of your question is related to Compound nouns as far as I know. So, you can read this: http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-compound.htm
And, about "of", this might be helpful: http://www.google.ca/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz...