.... one's forehead

[brend10]

Can you please tell me with which word I will fill the blank.

at, to, on, around...

There were children with flags in their hand and
bands with some writings on them, .....their foreheads.

and another question;

you put band ..... forehead
or
you wear band .... forehead

[apex2000]

Originally Posted by brend10

Can you please tell me with which word I will fill the blank.

at, to, on, around...

There were children with flags in their hand and
bands with some writings on them, on their foreheads.

and another question;

you put a band on your forehead
or
you wear a band on your forehead

On the forehead, around the head.

[Niall]

Originally Posted by brend10

Can you please tell me with which word I will fill the blank.

at, to, on, around...

There were children with flags in their hand and
bands with some writing on them, .....their foreheads.

and another question;

you put band ..... forehead
or
you wear band .... forehead

I would say around but you can also say on, though I don't think that sounds as nice.

As for the second part, you can say either wear or put. "You put" is the process of putting it on, whereas "You wear" describes the process of wearing it after having put it on.

[engee30]

Originally Posted by Niall

I would say around but you can also say on, though I don't think that sounds as nice.

To my way of thinking around one's forehead is quite abstract to say since your forehead is placed on your head and not the other way round. Apex2000 explained the issue the right way.

[Niall]

I don't think there is any problem with the phrase "around one's forehead" and would say it is in fairly common usage.
The reason I think "around" is appropriate is because I associate bands as going "around" things, though "on" is obviously still perfectly correct. ;)

[engee30]

Originally Posted by Niall

I don't think there is any problem with the phrase "around one's forehead" and would say it is in fairly common usage.
The reason I think "around" is appropriate is because I associate bands as going "around" things, though "on" is obviously still perfectly correct. ;)

This is how I see it looking at the word (a)round used with a body part:

face1.jpg

[BobK]

Originally Posted by engee30

To my way of thinking around one's forehead is quite abstract to say since your forehead is placed on your head and not the other way round. Apex2000 explained the issue the right way.

Well I agree with everyone. Bands go around things, but the forehead is two-dimensional - so what's on it should reasonably be "on"; e.g. "On Ash Wednesday, church-goers are marked with a cross of ash on the forehead".

In my view there is an error of logic in using "around" in the context of a forehead, but the collocation between "band" and "around" is so strong that in unedited speech it is very easy for someone to say "band around" before realizing that "forehead" is about to appear in the context - which makes "band around his forehead" quite common:

Of course, Google has its drawbacks; but if this is a mistake it's a very common one. Add all these together:

Results 1 - 10 of about 69,600 English pages for "around your forehead"
Results 1 - 10 of about 16,700 English pages for "around his forehead"
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,070 English pages for "around her forehead"
Results 1 - 10 of about 934 English pages for "around my forehead"



b

[engee30]

Originally Posted by BobK

...but the collocation between "band" and "around" is so strong that in unedited speech it is very easy for someone to say "band around" before realizing that "forehead" is about to appear in the context - which makes "band around his forehead" quite common...

This is exactly how I explain that usage to myself - a strong collocation between the words.