Ok my student has written "in the incriminated evening" (she meant the evening of the crime) - the full sentence is "She looked quite nervous during her visit to his shop in the incriminated evening." Now I know "incriminated evening" makes no sense - my question is in the "in" and "on". I'm almost certain it should be "on the evening of the crime" or "on the evening in question" - first, am I correct? (and is there a better way of saying "night of the crime"?) Secondly, please someone explain or give me a link to explaining the difference between "in the evening" and "on the night of the murder" - I know the difference but for the life of me I don't know how to explain it. That one is general, some time in the evening and the other's specific?
Could it be simply that one describes the happenings "in the evening...", or simply describes the setting? which, as you said, is more general? Whereas, "on the night of..." is a pre-tense for something specific to follow? We dined in the Saturday evening. vs. On Saturday night, we ate at Von Lugers.
I think, if you use "on", it has to reference some event - on the evening of the crime, on the day of Roger's murder. "In" refers to the time period - in the afternoon, in the evening - without reference to any specific event.
If the "incriminated evening" was at the beginning of the sentence it would be on, seeing as it is the main setting. Seeing as it is at the end of the sentence "in" is correct because it is a side-note of the setting, while the rest of the sentence is the main focus.
roger explained it best... 'on' = a date and 'in' = a time of day... aside from that, 'incriminated evening' makes no sense, since an evening can't be accused of a crime!
