grammaticality - Which is correct: "the below information" or "the information below"?


I frequently see statements that refer to something later in the text that use a phrase such as "the below information". Is it more correct instead to say "the information below" (or "the following information")?



Answer



As a preposition, "below" would be written after "information" as a stranded preposition. While typically prepositions would precede the noun, stranded prepositions can occur "in interrogative or relative clauses, where the interrogative or relative pronoun that is the preposition's complement is moved to the start".


We see such a stranded preposition in the case of "the information below," and therefore the preposition follows it. By contrast, in the case of "the following information", an adjective is used to describe the noun and therefore may precede it.


In short, "the below information" is not generally accepted to be correct, because "below" is not universally acknowledged as an adjective. Nevertheless, some dictionaries specifically list this as an exception.


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