Prepositions and the words they relate to each other

I remember being taught that a preposition shows relationship between two other words; no mention of nouns or pronouns, just 'words'. But, now that I think about it, it seems to mainly affect nouns.

I was once told that a preposition was anything a frog could do with a log. Jump off a log, swim to a log, etc.

You had a good, creative teacher, Roger.

Not only that, I knew what I had, when I had it. I usually spend a decade figuring these things out.

I believe Governor Perry intends to outlaw prepositions, so it's all moot, anyway.

'eat' a log?

Outlaw them? I didn't think he'd ever heard of them.

thanks for the input everyone. this is a related question, though even I feel it's a little nitpicky - if anyone has any input though, i'd welcome it. In sentences like: "We are in the building," does "in," relate "the building," to "we," or "are?". The most popular answer would probably be " we," but if a preposition can relate ANY word to another word and not just nouns or pronouns, couldn't one argue that the state of being verb "are," is being related by "in," to "the building," saying that this is the location where the state of being occurred.

Another example (this time with an action verb) is: "They danced in the room," Most people would say that "They," is being related by "in," to "the room," but one might say that the action verb: "danced," is what's being related to: "the room," saying that this is where the action occurred.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Btw, who's gov.perry?

Again, ithe word (preposition) "in" describes the relationship between "we" and "the building."

And whoever those people are that would say "they" is somehow related to anything in that sentence about dancing obviously don't understand the sentence or the function of a preposition. The two words that the preposition "in" connects are "dancing" and the "room."

So you mean that in example 1 (We are in the building) "in," relates "we," to "the building," but in sentence 2 (They are dancing in the room), "in," relates "dancing," to "the room?" Am I understanding it correctly? So, in sentence 1, "in," relates the subject to the object but in sentence 2, "in," relates the verb to the object, right? Is it because sentence 1 uses a state of being verb, while sentence 2 uses an action verb?

I'm not trying to debunk anyone or anything but am actually trying to come up with answers for overly inquisitive people I might speak to about this in the future. I'm trying to understand the why "in," relates the subject (we) to the object (the building) in sentence 1, while in sentence 2, it relates the verb (dancing) to the object (the room).

It's immaterial what part of speech the referants to a preposition are. The preposition relates the words to each other. In sentence 1 "we" are in "the building." In sentence 2, there is "dancing" in "the room", regardless of who is actually doing this "dancing."