Sunday, June 29, 2008

Grew Up In

Lately, I'm noticing confusion between "grew up in" and "came from." Sometimes, I hear students say "I grew from the province" or "I came up in province." I think this is what happens when people are not too sure about the expression they're trying to use and they wind up kind of putting everything they know together in one wrong statement. Here are the correct ways to say it:

"I grew up in the province."
"I came from the province."

The first statement is used when a person is talking about where he/she grew up. In other words, where he/she spent his/her childhood, adolescent life, and probably early adulthood. The second statement is used to say that the person is in the city after having left the province. This can be used to say that he/she has lived in the province for most of his/her life (as in, grew up in) or it can be used to say that he/she has just come from the province (perhaps on a business trip).

Our internet connection was down for a couple of days. This always seems to happen after a storm.

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