• palordrolap
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    fedilink
    44 days ago

    “They work in an office, where they work on some problems and work around (avoid) others.”

    “Work about” could be used in place of the latter but would sound a bit dialectal or rustic.

    There’s also “He does work about the place”, meaning “He performs tasks in that place.”, but there the “about” is part of the following adverbial phrase rather than a specifier on “work”.

    I think there’s probably a case for most English prepositions after “work” come to think of it. As to how useful they’d be, well, it’d be a matter of finding a list of prepositions and see which of them works out.

    • @tetris11
      link
      13 days ago

      There are actually more distinct meanings than I initially thought, but yeah most of them are prepositions

      • To work up (an appetite, an argument)
      • To work down (a screw, or something grinding)
      • To work for (prep: an employer, some hierarchy)
      • To work in (prep: an office, a space)
      • To work on (prep: a project)
      • To work with (prep: a person)