wholegrain  +  838976 Wed, 29 Jul 09 05:52 PM "Schools are educating creativity and innovation out of children, and sucking the joy out of that experience." What does "out of" means here. I think the most appropriate meaning is "away from; not in"; however, in a concrete way I don't think it makes any sense. Does that mean "out of" is used in an abstract way, perhaps "metaphorical" way? wholegrain Joined on Thu, Jun 19 2008 Regular Member 534

	Philip  +  839067 Wed, 29 Jul 09 07:19 PM It's a figurative use of the word.   [We suck juice from an orange; we such creativity from children.]  Philip Joined on Thu, Jun 23 2005 Veteran Member 8,737 At reise er at leve! - H. C. Andersen

	wholegrain  +  839308 Wed, 29 Jul 09 11:27 PM This laptop maker has started developing its own operating system to reduce its dependency away from Microsoft. Is this sentence correct? wholegrain Sentences

	Yankee  +  839330 Wed, 29 Jul 09 11:51 PM I get what they (you?) are trying to say (i.e. the idea of "move away from"), but I'd still prefer the more standard "reduce its dependency on". Yankee Joined on Sat, Apr 15 2006 Connecticut, USA Veteran Member 6,499 Amy "You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." - Mark Twain

	wholegrain  +  839466 Thu, 30 Jul 09 02:06 AM Thank you. Some people told me it was wrong though. Is it wrong? wholegrain

	Yankee  +  839560 Thu, 30 Jul 09 03:44 AM I can understand perfectly why people have told you it's wrong. First of all, the collocation "dependency on" is extremely common and also quite standard. There is also no reason whatsoever not to use it in your sentence. The next point is that the verb "reduce" really doesn't work well with "away from". You ought to choose a verb that has more of a sense of movement, such as "move" or "shift", if you want to add "away from". In short, the word "dependency" doesn't work with "away from", and the verb "reduce" is also problematic with "away from". That's two reasons right there NOT to use "reduce its dependency away from".  So, what do you think? Do you think the people who have told you it's wrong are right? Yankee Sentences

	wholegrain  +  840290 Thu, 30 Jul 09 03:02 PM Ah, ok thanks. It's just that I thought it was similar to the use of "out of" with "educate". Some people even told me that sentence did not make sense, although it does (since it was found in a newspaper article). wholegrain Articles, Sentences

	wholegrain  +  840291 Thu, 30 Jul 09 03:04 PM The thing is that I was trying to make a sentence that sounded as weird to me. wholegrain Sentences