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Why is it "on TV" but "in the newspaper"?

PK (Madrid)

November 21

Why is it "on TV" but "in the newspaper"?

View our courses: English

Answers (1)

Quoc Duyen Anh Nguyen
English teacher

December 1

From my understanding, "on" is used to pair with the objects in which you cannot pierce through or open to look inside these objects. For example, "on TV", "on the street", "I put a napkin on my phone", since you cannot open TV, street, phone to look inside, you use "on".

On the other hand, "in" is used when you can certainly look inside an object. "in the newspaper", "in the kitchen", "I am in the airport", are all correct use of "in". You can open the newspaper to read the content inside it, and you can go inside the kitchen, the airport, hence we use "in" in such cases.

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