Could you tell the difference?

[zzang418lee]

I look out the window VS I look out of the window

How are they different in meaning?

Thanks

 

[Khosro]

I look out the window VS I look out of the window

What are they different in meaning?

Thanks

I don't know if there is a difference in the meaning or not. Here "out" and "out of" are both prepositions. I found the following in Macmillan dictionary and the example is just the sentence you've written:

"In American English and spoken British English "out" itself is commonly used as a preposition, but many British people consider that this use is not correct:"I looked out the window.".

(Means that many British people say: "I looked out of the window.")

 

[Coolfootluke]

I am not a teacher.

Wow. The Macmillan "dictionary" is wrong. It's "out the window". "Out of the window" is a mistake made by people who haven't read very much, but I will admit that it's a quite frequent mistake. The Macmillan so-called dictionary is a descriptivist dictionary, which means that it describes what people say rather than recognizing standards of correctness. If you want to speak and write in a colloquial register, use it. If you want to sound literate, do not.

I don't know if there is a difference in the meaning or not. Here "out" and "out of" are both prepositions. I found the following in Macmillan dictionary and the example is just the sentence you've written:

"In American English and spoken British English "out" itself is commonly used as a preposition, but many British people consider that this use is not correct:"I looked out the window.".

(Means that many British people say: "I looked out of the window.")

 

[Raymott]

I am not a teacher.

Wow. The Macmillan "dictionary" is wrong. It's "out the window". "Out of the window" is a mistake made by people who haven't read very much, but I will admit that it's a quite frequent mistake. The Macmillan so-called dictionary is a descriptivist dictionary, which means that it describes what people say rather than recognizing standards of correctness. If you want to speak and write in a colloquial register, use it. If you want to sound literate, do not.

"I had seen Uriah Heep's pale face looking out of the window." David Copperfield, Dickens.

" ... or the chief of the time between breakfast and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden or in reading and writing, and looking out of the window in his own book-room, which fronted the road." Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen.

"Do what he might, in any case, his previous virtue was still there, and it seemed fairly to
stare at him out of the windows of shops that were not as the shops of Woollett" The Ambassadors, Henry James.

"Celia observed that Dorothea, instead of settling down with her usual diligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned her elbow on an open book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with the damp. Middlemarch, George Elliot.

"He bled her, and he told me to let her live on whey and water-gruel, and take care she did not throw herself downstairs or out of the window" Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte.

"She left her bed and looked out of the window." Far from the Madding Crowd, William Hardy.

"You speak in riddles, learned sir," said the pale minister, glancing aside out of the window" The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window..." Moby Dick, Hermann Melville.
=====================================================================================================

I'm always willing to learn, Coolfootluke, and I wouldn't want to appear illiterate. What books should I be reading?

 

[TheParser]

I look out the window VS I look out of the window

What are they different in meaning?

Thanks

***** NOT A TEACHER *****


Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says:

When used as a preposition, [out] seems often to go with door
or window....It can seldom be idiomatically substituted for
out of. [In other words, it is usually OK only with door or window.]


The Columbia Guide to Standard American English says that

He went out the door is acceptable, but many times it is necessary

to use out of:

He's out of the office today.
She's coming out of her daydream.

The Concise Dictionary of American Grammar and Usage says:

"She looked out of the window" is preferred to ... "She looked out the window," although the latter is still commonly said in America.

*****


I most respectfully suggest that you -- as a learner who wishes to

speak "perfect" English -- use "out of," especially in writing. As an

American, I am perfectly comfortable (and accustomed to hearing)

"out the door." The "of" seems superfluous (an unnecessary extra

word). Nevertheless, Practical English Usage (written by a British

gentleman) reminds us that out of is the proper opposite of into.

He labels "out the back door" as "informal American English."

 

[Rover_KE]

I am not a teacher.

Wow. The Macmillan "dictionary" is wrong.

Wow, Coolfootluke! It's not a good idea to be so dogmatic on this board.

Rover

 

[Coolfootluke]

Wow, Coolfootluke! It's not a good idea to be so dogmatic on this board.

Rover

I like to present a stationary target. You will come to love me for it. (DOGmatic, Rover?)

 

[Rover_KE]

Woof.