3

I'm not a native English speaker, but whenever I see the label "Belongs on ..." makes me feel it should be "Belongs to ..." somehow? Can someone explain the wording?

Improve this question
1
  • interesting questions... one of those things that comes naturally to a native speaker, but most of us can't really come up with the reason why.
    – Kip
    Commented Jul 19, 2009 at 2:41

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

The word "belongs" can be used in a broader sense, without "to". For example, "the suitcase belongs on top of the wardrobe". Since you would say a post was "on superuser", it's correct to say "belongs on superuser" in that context.

Improve this answer
2
  • It's kinda ironic I think, as when the question gets moved to the appropriate site, it belongs to that site from then.
    – akarnokd
    Commented Jul 18, 2009 at 21:32
  • 2
    The sites are locations, not entities. Even after it is moved it belongs 'on' that site as the sites aren't possessive.
    – Ian Elliott
    Commented Jul 18, 2009 at 21:38
3

Belongs on refers to a place to where it has to be kept?

Belongs to refers to a person that owns it?

Improve this answer
3

It might also help you to review the definition of "site":

n.

  1. The place where a structure or group of structures was, is, or is to be located: a good site for the school.
  2. The place or setting of something: a historic site; a job site.
  3. A website.

Note that 1 and 2 refer to a location in the physical world, while 3 builds on these to establish a metaphor: a page or set of pages on a given host can be thought of as similar to to structures on a particular piece of ground.

So if a question is a structure (say... a bike shed), then it belongs on a piece of ground somewhere - and the close reasons establish that it was originally constructed on the wrong site.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .