Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

You're right. This is a rapidly spreading mis-use. Yesterday I read an advert for a cruise which talked of 'disembarking the boat'. This would actually mean taking the boat off another boat. On London Underground you will often hear would-be literate announcers telling passengers to take care while 'disembarking the train'. I don't think Pinker's example is relevant to this particular use - what people are doing here is using 'disembark' as if it were 'leave' or 'abandon' or 'desert' and 'embark' as if it were 'board'.

Irvingmoses and Glen (our ESL guru) are correct regarding the use/misuse of "disembark," and so this thread is effectively complete. Still, on reading it I was reminded of another curious usage encountered in the realm of transportation: get on the plane.

George Carlin had a routine about that. He related how the gate agent would always tell him to "get on the plane." His response was "[blank] you! Let the daredevils get on the plane ... I'm getting in the plane!"

It is a curious use, no? We "get in the car," "get in the submarine," and "get in the elevator." But we "get on the plane," get "on the ride" (like at an amusement park), and "get on the boat."

Doesn't seem to be any logic behind the various choices. Perhaps it's driven by tradition or jargon. I don't know. Anyone have any insights on this? It's a curious type of usage that I've always wondered about.

That's kinda what I suspected Glenn. BTW, sorry about dropping the second "n" in your name on my last post. Spellcheck tends to ignore most words starting with a cap. Damn … just noticed your number of posts … is that the record on this forum? That even tops Martha (but not Grant)!

I can only claim (feeble) understanding of German, and the use of prepositions are inconsistent there as well. I like your admonition that claiming to understand the use of prepositions is a delusion. If someone challenged me to explain the difference between using "in" and "on" I would truly have no answer except to cite "common usage." And that's kind of a cop-out. I was hoping for something more definitive, but guess there really is no answer.

There's another thread on this forum (Where are injured people taken in Britain?) that seems to say the same thing occurs with definite articles. No real consistency, and differences in usage between British and American English. Must be a real bear for ESL teachers.

So do you just ignore those inconsistencies in your classroom, tell your students they'll get it eventually based on practice, or provide examples that show common usage? Dude, I would not want your job.

George Carlin had a routine about that. He related how the gate agent would always tell him to "get on the plane." His response was "[blank] you! Let the daredevils get on the plane … I'm getting in the plane!"

It is a curious use, no? We "get in the car," "get in the submarine," and "get in the elevator." But we "get on the plane," get "on the ride" (like at an amusement park), and "get on the boat."

Doesn't seem to be any logic behind the various choices. Perhaps it's driven by tradition or jargon. I don't know. Anyone have any insights on this? It's a curious type of usage that I've always wondered about.

"Get on the ride" and "Get on the boat" both make sense to my hearing. That just leaves "Get on the plane". I wonder if this is related to the fact that very many aeronautical terms are taken directly from sailing terms.

Dick said:

"Get on the ride" and "Get on the boat" both make sense to my hearing. That just leaves "Get on the plane". I wonder if this is related to the fact that very many aeronautical terms are taken directly from sailing terms.

Yeah, now that actually makes some sense. Couldn't find anything definitive at online etymology sites. But even nautical types still differentiate between "getting on the ship" and "getting in the lifeboat/life-raft," so there's still something else going on here.

I wonder if it could be related to the difference between "ship" and "boat" and the fact that a boat is something that can be carried on a ship, and not the other way around?

At this point I'm just gonna take Glen's advice that I'm deluding myself looking for any real rule, and just accept it as a peculiarity of usage.

Good catch EmmetRedd. One does indeed get "inside" a rowboat or life raft, whereas one get's "on" the deck of a ship. And as Dick pointed out, many aeronautical terms are borrowed from nautical terms, so that might just logically explain why we say "get on the plane."

So now I'm wondering, since a submarine is a type of "ship" as opposed to a "boat," when the sub leaves port the crew is usually on the deck. In nautical jargon, when the crew arrives, they ask for "permission to board" and not "permission to get on." Likewise, I've heard many gate agents at airports tell the passengers to "board" as well as to "get on." So there's your nautical jargon again.

Never having served on a submarine, I have to wonder, after the submarine leaves port, is the crew told to "get in" or simply to "man your stations" or something else? Any WWW forum members ever serve on a sub? If so, what is the command used?

Glenn said:

What I do know is that prepositions are among the last things of any foreign language that a non-native speaker will master. They never make complete sense in any language I have looked into, and English is no exception. The real danger is deluding yourself that you finally understand how to use them.

As a former -- and occasionally still -- ESL teacher, I agree (as I almost always do) with Glenn. Besides my usual topical vocabulary lessons, most of my instruction was about prepositions, though it often came down to the very complicated American English verbal phrases ("Why do 'break up' and 'break down' mean completely different and unrelated thing?" they'd say). Verb tenses are mostly easy in English, even considering the uneven nuances in irregular verbs; prepositions become a wholly bizarre experience for most ESL students (again, particularly when used in verbals, so that might not reflect on the difficulties of the prepositions themselves).

(Actually, though, my Latin-American students -- both of Spanish (predominantly) and Portugese -- generally had a more difficult time with preposition than did my Asian students -- who were from many, many different language backgrounds. Anyone out there familiar with Asian languages (and here I mean Eastern and Southeastern languages; my Asian students were from China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, and Cambodia) know why this might be the case?)

Heimhenge said:

It is a curious use, no? We "get in the car," "get in the submarine," and "get in the elevator." But we "get on the plane," get "on the ride" (like at an amusement park), and "get on the boat."
Doesn't seem to be any logic behind the various choices. Perhaps it's driven by tradition or jargon. I don't know. Anyone have any insights on this? It's a curious type of usage that I've always wondered about.

It's just a notion, but maybe it's not logical but historical, or (as you say, Heimhenge) "traditional".   When you get on planes, trains etc, you're boarding a transport.   A long time ago, I picture one climbing onto an open wagon.   Long before they had steam-driven trains they had horse-drawn trams that ran on train rails.   Maybe if we got on those, the usage just continued whenever we get on any a bus, train, the subway, anything having to do with mass transit.

Maybe it's an ESL thing, but my husband doesn't get in the car.   He steps in the car.   His first language is Dutch.