Can 'mention' be used with 'about'?

[Tan Elaine]

Can the verb 'mention' be used with 'about'?

For example, "He likes to mention about his achievements."

Thanks.

 

[charliedeut]

Can the verb 'mention' be used with 'about'?

For example, "He likes to mention [STRIKE]about [/STRIKE]his achievements."

Thanks.

Hi Tan,

As far as I know, that's the way it must be used.

Greetings,

charliedeut

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

NOT A TEACHER

It's

He likes to talk about his achievements.

but

He likes to mention his achievements.

And neither should "discuss" be followed by "about", so:

He likes to discuss his achievements.

 

[Tdol]

As a noun, you can use of:

H emade no mention of his achievements.

Don't use a preposition after the verb.

 

[Tan Elaine]

Thanks, Tdol.

I remember reading that as a verb 'mention' should not be followed by 'about', but why is 'mention about' found in the following link.

BNC Simple Search

Thanks again.

 

[birdeen's call]

As far as I know, that's the way it must be used.

Hi, charliedeut.

I didn't notice that you edited Tan Elaine's sentence and thought you'd said it was OK. Minor edits in a quote box are easy to miss.

 

[Tan Elaine]

Thanks, Tdol.

I remember reading that as a verb 'mention' should not be followed by 'about', but why is 'mention about' found in the following link?

BNC Simple Search

Thanks again.

 

[bhaisahab]

Thanks, Tdol.

I remember reading that as a verb 'mention' should not be followed by 'about', but why is 'mention about' found in the following link.

BNC Simple Search

Thanks again.

In some of those examples "mention" is used as a noun, the others are poor English.

 

[Tan Elaine]

Thanks, bhaisahab, for confirming that 'mention about' is wrong.

 

[birdeen's call]

It's possible to use the verb "mention" followed by "about" correctly:

In all, he mentioned about fifty of his co-workers by name and said something positive about each one.

Here, "about" modifies "fifty". Probably not exactly fifty, but about fifty.

Among the things he mentioned about Christmas is that it inspires people “to keep the faith and to hold on to an enduring hope in humanity.”

In this sentence, it's the things that are about Christmas, not the mentioning.

 

[5jj]

It's possible to use the verb "mention" followed by "about" correctly:.

Well said BC. :up:

'Rules' about a language can never be 100% watertight. Any attempt to make them so would need to contain so many caveats that they would be almost worthless.

Chomsky produced the sentence, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct but semantically nonsensical The ink was hardly dry on the paper before people were showing that it could be meaningful semantically, as I did here,

Everything we have ever read would seem to make it obvious that 'We did it tomorrow last year' is not a possible English sentence, but it is - given a fairly convoluted context.

So, 'rules' can be very useful, but they, like moderation (;-)), should not be taken to excess.