I'm thinking about his doing it / I'm thinking of his doing it

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Matar0

#254089 Wed, 09 Aug 06 05:15 PM

In sentences like:
I'm thinking about/of his committing suicide
I'm thinking about/of them resigning
I'm thinking about/of Jill's having dinner with him

and so on, is there a real difference between the usage of "think about"(to me this is more correct in the vast majority of the cases) and "think of".
Is there any sentence in which should be better using "think of" instead of "think about" (with the structure of the sentences above think of+his/your/their+Verb-ing) ?

Thx very much

Matar0

Joined on Sat, Aug 5 2006

New Member (08)

Verbs, Difference between

Inchoateknowledge

#254092 Wed, 09 Aug 06 05:58 PM

If you think about something, you are more engaged in cogitating about it than when you only think of it.
The pronoun after the preposition (of/about) may be either in possessive (his, their, your, etc.) or accusative case (him, them, you, etc.).
The former is more formal.

Inchoateknowledge

Joined on Wed, May 3 2006

Senior Member (2,528)

Beep! Beep! :)

Possessives, Prepositions, Nouns, Pronouns, Accusative