Learn English – ‘Out of’ vs. ‘from’ vs. ‘with’

prepositionsusage

I have been struggling to understand the usage of 'out of' vs 'from' vs 'with'. I'm used to use 'from' or 'with' frequently.I often find some sentences which I think should be replaced with'from' or 'with'. While surfing through the dictionaries. I have found the following sources which describe'out of':

Source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/out

Indicating the source or derivation of something; from:

‘a bench fashioned out of a fallen tree trunk’

I get a lot of enjoyment out of teaching.

Confidence enables you to win, and by winning you get enjoyment out of the game.’

Birds make nests out of branches or twigs.
(Can't I use 'with/from' instead of 'out of')

Source:http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/out

COME FROM SOMETHING used to say where something comes from or is taken from

A lot of good music came out of the hippy culture in the 1960s.

The money is automatically taken out of your bank account every year.

Can I use 'from' instead of 'out of'? 'From' also refers to the source that something comes from or obtained from.Right ? Why to use 'out of' instead of 'from' ?

Again,

What is the use of out of in the sentence "Someone had torn several pages out of her diary."
Can't I say "from her diary"?

Best Answer

out of and from are pretty much interchangeable, when you are talking about materials something is made of, or an abstract concept that is derived from some thing or activity.

With is not quite the same, as it suggests adding something rather than deriving something. You could not, for example, say

I get a lot of enjoyment with teaching - not natural

but you can say

Birds make nests with branches or twigs.

because the birds are adding twigs to the nest, rather than for example shaping a twig to make a nest.

Someone had torn several pages out of her diary

In my opinion, this sentence uses the the compound verb tear out. You could use from, but the original version is much more specific.

tear out means to remove something completely by pulling hard, for example you can talk about somebody tearing their hair out.

On the other hand, tear means to pull apart, or to pull pieces off. So,

Someone had torn several pages from her diary

could mean:

  • somebody pulled the pages out completely
  • somebody pulled the pages apart, ripping the pages into small pieces
  • somebody pulled pieces off the pages, for example ripping off the top corner from each page.

You could, of course use from together with tear out, like this:

Someone had torn out several pages from her diary

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