Dropping prepositions is a common speech pattern in the US Midwest. For example, "Get that dog out (of) the room." or "She graduated (from) college last year." So, if you're designing a character from the Midwest, it is appropriate to use such speech patterns.
Observations like that are why it's best to observe regional speakers in their native habitat. Pay attention to when they do (and do not!) slip into speech patterns like the one NaCl mentions. It's the kind of information that is hard to collect online. You might pick it up from youtube videos, but you won't always have reliable location data. Also, people behave differently when they know they are on camera.
Why not? It's a valid choice. Would you question it if the sentence were: Writers make choices all the time. Some are clearer or mor evocative than others. If you don't feel a particular choice works in your situation, you use another. Sometimes you deal with idioms which aren't grammatically perfect on the face of it. Maybe it's because of compression of longer but formally correct phrases, but unless it tugs a reader's (or submissions editor) out of the flow of the story, it ain't that big a deal. EDIT: I think it's more of a problem with English as a second language. Non-native speakers struggle to find the grammar rule that explains why one sentence is fine, but a similar one is awful. But the exceptions in English are frustratingly pervasive. A purely rule-based approach to the language will drive you insane.
What about "out of", "despite of", "in spite of", "inside of", or any of the other ones? I would say that like many dialectal usages, it's a fine line between grammatical and ungrammatical.
Already covered. Care to try that in a sentence? It seems an outright grammatical error, since "in spite of" = "despite." Despite his poor grammar, the apiring writer was (self) published, anyway! "In spite" would mean something entirely different from "in spite of." Redundant, like "off of." I think you'd just have to read a lot to improve your "English sense." All of the above are either right or wrong. It doesn't seem a fine line to me. Possibly a confusing one, though. That said, character speech is whatever it needs to be. . . ungrammatical or immaculate as the case demands.
What if the narrative is intentionally portrayed with a dialect? For example, a story like Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn could be told from the perspective of Jim, Miss Watson's slave. In this case, the narrator would use regional/ethnic/social language peculiarities while the characters maintain dialect reflecting their own environment. I read a book like that once, but for the life of me, I can't remember the name.
Basically, what I am trying to say is: 1) Just because something is redundant doesn't mean it is ungrammatical or wrong. 2) Just because something isn't used in formal standard written English doesn't mean it is ungrammatical (although it often is). Just a variant. Some things are only used in one tiny dialect and are highly variant, other things (eg. inside of) are used by a vast number of English speakers, and some (eg. off of) are used by a fair few. That was what I meant by a fine line. People often mistake register errors, or dialect switches for grammatical mistakes, and they are not the same thing. 3) I don't like seeing things dismissed flat out as "wrong" or "ungrammatical" when they are in fact just slight variants, and as you acknowledged have perfectly acceptable roles in writing (Like to show a character's dialect) When things are dismissed as outright "wrong" or "ungrammatical", it is implied that they have no use, ever, I think. Maybe I misunderstood. I feel that creative writers shouldn't needlessly narrow their linguistic options. 4) Yes people do use "despite of". Yes it's one of the variants that is further down the usage ladder, but it's not that uncommon. (Nice sample sentence there, Kas, ahah! )
I have to admit, "off of" is a grammatical error I make often. I have to put forth a solid effort to catch it, though many times it gets by me because I often write like I speak. Sadly, that is a term my whole family uses.
Ok, I think I use my prepositions just fine, but looking at it closer, I don’t know why I do, since it makes little sense. “The ball rolled off of the couch.” “The ball rolled out of the room. “ Structurally, these two sentences are exactly the same, yet one is considered correct and the other not correct. Weird!
Excellent points. I think our problem with all the various examples is that we've lost the ability to discuss the function various words have and can have in a sentence--any one of which (to be a better or weaker choice)--relies upon context, meaning, and literary purpose. I think we tend to misuse the word "[in]correct" a lot! Grammatical correctness depends upon meaning; and "correcting" a piece of grammar (especially so out of context) can shift meaning enough to make a point clearer OR to making a point that's entirely unintended or even dramatically misleading or wrong. I hate to say it, but I think when we stopped learning sentence diagramming in school, we lost a good bit of the language capacity to think about how many ways we can manipulate grammatical constructs (and, so, deliver more subtle undertones to our prose and more nuanced and flavorful speech).
I've never heard 'despite of'... can anyone give me an example of who would use it and in what context?
Someone who doesn't know how to speak English? I guess maybe someone might confuse "despite" and "in spite of" which mean the same thing...
It's just a dialectal variant. People say it where I come from (Newfoundland, Canada). For example: I enjoyed my barbecue despite of the rain. It's just used instead of plain "despite".
