[Grammar] ‘in the factory’ VS ‘at the factory’

[northpath]

What is more common?
1. Dave lost his job in the automobile factory.
Or
2. Dave lost his job at the automobile factory.
Another pair:
3. There was a shortage of supplies at the factories.
Or
4. There was a shortage of supplies in the factories
Another pair:
5. Dave works at the automobile factory.
or
6. Dave works in the automobile factory.
And finally:
7. Tracy works at the local supermarket.
Or
8. Tracy works in the local supermarket.

 

[GoesStation]

Re: ‘in the factory’ VS ‘on the factory’

At​ is more common in all those cases.

 

[emsr2d2]

Re: ‘in the factory’ VS ‘on the factory’

Why did your title ask about "in" vs "on​" the factory, when your entire post was about "in" vs "at"?

 

[northpath]

Re: ‘in the factory’ VS ‘on the factory’

Sorry, it was a misprint.

 

[emsr2d2]

I've amended the title for you. The new title will only appear on post #1 and on responses after this one.

 

[northpath]

Thank you so much!
So, should I avoid using preposition ‘in’ in the above sentences or ‘in’ is quite acceptable too?

 

[emsr2d2]

I can't say that the versions with "in" are incorrect but the versions with "at" are all more natural.

 

[jutfrank]

I would say that the different prepositions confer different meanings.

Consider the first pair. If we look at sentence 1., we could parse it into subject|verb|object:

• Dave | lost | his job at the automobile factory.

This tells us something about the kind of job. The preposition is part of the object noun phrase.

But with sentence 2., we could get a different meaning altogether:

• Dave | lost | his job | in the automobile factory.

This tells us about the verb, ie,. where he lost his job. The preposition is part of the adverbial phrase. It might have been a job as an office worker, but he actually got fired over the phone while he was skiving off visiting the car plant.

I know the second is a silly and rather unlikely interpretation but my serious point is that the choice of using a certain preposition depends on the meaning it gives. There is rarely a case where two prepositions could be used with the same meaning.