idioms - Which is correct: "standing on line" or "standing in line"?


I'm curious to hear from folks in the the Northeast United States (or anyone, really) an explanation of why "standing on line" seems preferable to "standing in line" in the US northeast.


I imagine for many people that their reasons for preference will be that "It just sounds better," just as my reasons for my preference is that "standing on line" sounds too awkward to my ears. That said, I can't even create a linguistic argument for why it might be more "correct."



Answer



There is no linguistic reason why either one is correct. This is a normal example of language variation. There are possibly linguistic reasons why such variation in prepositions is fairly common, that being that the meaning of prepositions in many cases is notoriously hard to pin down (in some cases, they have no real meaning, acting instead as plain case markers).


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