which department are you working in/with/at

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If a student is sitting at table, facing a professor, whom he knows to be teaching engineering, but not exactly which kind of engineering in the engineering faculty, how should he phrase the question? Can this?:

-Which department are you working in/with/at?

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Type: Question • Score: 3 • Views: 4,893 • Replies: 12

[+3] - izzythepush - 03/09/2014JTT is only concerned about himself. He does not seek to inform, and educate, but to confuse, in order to make himself appear smarter. He claims to take a descriptive approach to grammar, but if...

@WBYeats,

WB: If a student is sitting at table, facing a professor, whom he knows to be teaching engineering, but not exactly which kind of engineering in the engineering faculty, how should he phrase the question? Can this?:

-Which department are you working in/with/at?
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... working in?

working with? might entail some collaborative effort but it could also work in CONTEXT with a professor who moves around quite a bit, sort of in the same vein as "Who are you working with now?"

Which (location/building) are you working at?

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@WBYeats,

What department are you in? Working is redundant. You could say which, but what sounds more natural.

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@WBYeats,

I'd go with "in" or "with" However I might add "currently"as ever-so-slightly more amicable. I might even ask, "Which department or departments…."

Agree w/Izzy about "working"

When I presented the q to my Better Half, who as you're probably aware is much smarter than I, she replied, "I'd day 'What department….' "

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@izzythepush,

'you' is also redundant. English is full of redundancies

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@JTT,

JTT wrote:

'you' is also redundant. English is full of redundancies

"What department are in"? That's not grammatical.

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Thank you~

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@InfraBlue,

JTT is only concerned about himself. He does not seek to inform, and educate, but to confuse, in order to make himself appear smarter. He claims to take a descriptive approach to grammar, but if someone else does that prior to posting he will take the opposite tack.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

Infra: "What department are in"? That's not grammatical.

I didn't suggest it was, Infra.

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@izzythepush,

How would you know, Izzy, with your head firmly stuck far up your butt?

Then again, considering just what a compulsive liar you are, you've likely been peeking all along.

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@izzythepush,

What should I use?:

-Some instructors are from/in/of/with/at the XYZ department.

You did not mention WITH & AT, but do you not think they are also possible? We say a person WORKS WITH a company, don't we?

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@WBYeats,

WBYeats wrote:

What should I use?:

-Some instructors are from/in/of/with/at the XYZ department.

You did not mention WITH & AT, but do you not think they are also possible? We say a person WORKS WITH a company, don't we?

We tend to say they work for a company unless they're from a different company working in collaboration, then we would use with.

Either of these two are acceptable.

Some instructors are from the XYZ department.

Or

Some instructors are with the XYZ department.

Some instructors are in the XYZ department implies this is a recent occurrence, they've just got there for some reason or other, maybe training. They're in they're but they're not from there.

Some instructors are at the XYZ department has a similar meaning, but not if you're discussing a professional job title.

He is the chief consultant at A2K hospital
He is the professor of linguistics at A2K university.
He is the chief sanitation engineer at A2K water treatment works.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

Some instructors are in the XYZ department implies this is a recent occurrence, they've just got there for some reason or other, maybe training. They're in they're[sic] but they're not from there.

This is patently false.

Quote:

We tend to say they work for a company unless they're from a different company working in collaboration, then we would use with.

This is misleading info. When the verb is "work", 'with' can imply collaboration. 'He is with IBM' does not suggest collaboration, it describes the company 'he' works for.

If you choose to rely on a know nothing like izzy, WB, then you have to suffer the consequences.

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which department are you working in/with/at

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