Learn English – “of the heart” vs “in the heart” and how to use prepositions correctly

grammarprepositions

I'm not a native speaker, and the uses of prepositions are driving me crazy.

I saw a post with the phrase "you are the champion of my heart" on it.
I thought it should be "the champion in my heart", "of my heart" sounds like you have several hearts, and one of them is your champion…
Then I googled it, found out this "of my hearts" usage got more results than "in".
The same question goes for "Secret of my heart" and "secret in my heart".

I read some grammar books, there were a lot of examples for prepositions, but still cannot cover all of the situations. Are there any rules about how to use prepositions correctly or I just have to remember every case I've met?

Thank you.

Best Answer

First, "of my heart" simply means that something is associated with your emotions:

You are the love of my heart.

Also, when we use words like "heart" or "head" metaphorically, prepositions may not mean what you think they mean. Consider:

You really got in my head for a minute there.

That simply means, "You affected my thoughts," and (thankfully) has nothing to do with you shrinking and climbing into my skull.

As for "of my heart" vs. "in my heart", here's one way I might characterize the two:

  • of my heart can be used with the definite article, to indicate preeminent personal feelings
  • in my heart can be used with the indefinite article, to project a role

For example:

You are a diva in my heart. (means: in my heart, I regard you as a diva)
You are the diva of my heart. (means: in my heart, I regard you as the diva)

So, back to what you said:

"of my heart" sounds like you have several hearts, and one of them is your champion...

Instead:

the champion of my heart

means something more like:

there may be several people who could be my champion, but, in my heart, you are my true champion

Disclaimer: I wouldn't regard this as a hard-and-fast rule with zero exceptions. As was mentioned, prepositions are very tricky. Macmillan lists more than 20 possible usages of the word of, and when you combine those with metaphorical words such as head, heart or skin, some preposition-noun combinations will indeed be idiomatic, and need to be learned one-by-one (such as, "She really gets under my skin.")

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