Phrase Usage – ‘Inform About’ vs ‘Inform Of’: Usage Difference

The preposition of "on" can be used to mean "to the detriment of".

The three common phrases that come to mind are "inform on", "tell on", and "tattle on", which all mean, as you say, "give incriminating information about".

I've seen "quit on". As in, if you and I are working on a project, and you quit, that hampers my efforts to complete the project. I might tell you "Don't quit on me." I might complain to someone else that "Bob quit on me."

I've also occasionally seen it used with "die". "Don't die on me!" i.e. "Don't die - I need you!"

There are a handful of other verbs it can be used with, but it's a fairly specialized use of "on". I can probably think of more verbs it can't be used with than verbs it can.

It is an archaic meaning of "inform" in the sense "to create an impression on something", like a fingerprint on moist clay.

This trope, a commonplace in philosophical writing, would ultimately go back, I think, to medieval scholasticism at the intersection of metaphysics and epistemology (and from there back to Aristotle); the "form" of something was its essence, that which made it to be what it was. Does the mind go out and alter that which it knows? Or does that which is known create impressions on the mind? Yadda yadda yadda.

They (the limits of our understanding) do not create an impression on reality. They do not change reality.