Learn English – difference between “at” and “from”

meaningphrase-meaning

I posted the following question to Lang-8.

I have a question.
Which one is correct?
1. The next meeting will be from 10:30.
2. The next meeting will be at 10:30.
What's the difference between these two sentences?

Then I got the following answer.

An event always occurs "at" a time.
ex.) I went to school at 7:00. I came home at 4:30.
If you are talking about the length of time, you can say "from"
ex) I was waiting at the airport from 3:00 to 4:00. Then we went sightseeing from 4:30 to 8:00.

Now, I have a new question.
If someone say "The next meeting will be from 10:30", does that sound strange? Or if someone say this sentence, what kind of meaning does it have?

Best Answer

They're right. If you want to specify that an event is to take place at a specific time, using the preposition from would be wrong. Your example containing from does sound strange and, what's more, unnatural. No one would ever say something like that. With time, the preposition that we tend to use most often would be at. For example:

We will meet at 2 o'clock at the hot dog stand. So, I'll see you there.

You would use the construction from ... to ... (notice that it's two prepositions, not one) to specify the duration of an event (how long it lasts, in other words):

The meeting lasted one hour, from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM.

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