Speaking of 'on'

Posted by Anders on July 02, 2004

In Reply to: Speaking of 'on' posted by R. Berg on July 02, 2004

: : : : On this home page we'll introduce...and highlight important areas on our site.

: : : It looks OK to me. "Of our site" would work, too. "On" works if you think of the site as a set of surfaces, like sheets of paper, as in "I tried to read the middle paragraph on page 2."

: : I believe 'click on' (this link) is quite common, which argues in favour of ABC and Berg. However, I sometimes wonder when or if it would be preferable to leave it out, saying simply 'click' (this link).
: : BTW, any thoughts on log in v. log on? Both are possible, of course; but is there, of can there be, a difference in meaning? Needless to say, this 'on' is not immediately related to the 'on' above. Contrary to 'click on (this link)', 'log on' doesn't have to be followed by a direct object, although of course it can be (as in 'log on to this web site').
: : Anders

: I don't think of what I do as clicking a link. I click the computer's clicker while a picture that looks like Mickey Mouse's glove is on the link.

: Who's ABC?

Hello Ms Berg
Good to hear from you. ABC is the person who started this thread, and opted for 'on', which you supported (which is why I group the two of you together). While I realize that no one really clicks on anything but the mouse - unless we're talking about touch screens and that type of thing - I maintain that 'clicking on (a link)' is idiomatic. Mind you, computer parlance is littered with metaphor - desktop, recycle bin, mailbox, etc.
Anders