I know ‘once upon a time’
but how to use upon with a verb
my high school teacher said treat it as ‘on’
I’m confused with it…
Hi Kekenkenny
The words ‘on’ and ‘upon’ are frequently interchangeable, but ‘upon’ tends to sound more formal.
There are also times when ‘on’ cannot replace ‘upon’. For example, the word ‘on’ would sound quite odd as a replacement for ‘upon’ in the phrasal verb ‘come upon’. And ‘once upon a time’ is a fixed expression, so you should not attempt to replace ‘upon’ with ‘on’.
Why don’t you write a few sentences of your own using ‘upon’, and then post them here for comment.
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upon
A few examples:
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UPON BEING
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UPON REACHING
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UPON HEARING
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UPON LEAVING
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UPON ENTERING
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UPON RECEIVING
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UPON SEEING
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UPON ARRIVING
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UPON HAVING
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UPON MAKING
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UPON BINDING
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UPON IMPROVING
-
UPON RETURNING
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UPON TAKING
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UPON DISCOVERING
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UPON FINDING
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UPON GETTING
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UPON ASSUMING
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UPON BECOMING
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UPON ACHIEVING
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UPON LEARNING
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UPON MAINTAINING
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UPON OPENING
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UPON RELINQUISHING
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UPON SHOWING
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UPON UNDERSTANDING
Do you think all those could be replaced with “on”, kekenkenny?
And a few verb + upon collocations:
1 BASED UPON
2 DEPENDS UPON
3 CALLED UPON
4 DEPEND UPON
5 RELIED UPON
6 DEPENDING UPON
7 CALL UPON
8 RELY UPON
9 PLACED UPON
10 IMPOSED UPON
11 LOOKED UPON
12 DEPENDED UPON
13 CAME UPON
14 LOOK UPON
15 ACTED UPON
16 BUILT UPON
17 IS UPON
18 AGREED UPON
19 EMBARKED UPON
20 DECIDED UPON
21 FORCED UPON
22 DRAW UPON
23 SET UPON
24 COME UPON
25 BUILD UPON
26 FELL UPON
27 FOCUSED UPON
28 ACT UPON
29 TOUCHED UPON
30 PUT UPON
Enjoy!
Thank you for your both, for example, if we use force upon, Should we say: you cannot force upon me going out or you cannot force me going out or you cannot force on me going out?
cannot force going out upon/on me
cannot force me to out
Hi,
In my book you can say
Your views cannot be forced upon others
Love cannot be forced upon one
But let’s wait for Amy (AKA Yankee) to check the two examples, if they are right or not. 
Did you actually mean ‘to out’? Or did you mean to write ‘to go out’? :idea:
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Thanks for the examples Molly, especially those using upon to start a sentence. There often seems to be confusion with folks using “on” when “upon” or “when” should actually be used.
An informative post from a wordreference.com forum:
Re: upon vs. when
‘Upon’ and ‘when’ can both be directly followed by the gerund-participle (the ing-form). ‘When’ is not used for past time meaning.
Upon arriving at the station, the princess received her dog. (past)
When arriving at the station, people go through the ticket barrier. (habitual)
= Upon arriving at the station, people go through the ticket barrier.
When arriving at the station, give your ticket to the ticket-collector. (future)
= Upon arriving at the station, give your ticket to the ticket-collector.
Instead of non-finite ‘arriving’, you can use a finite verb - one that has a person and a tense. Now as your sentence is about the past, it has to be past tense. But it also needs a subject, ‘she’, the person.
When she arrived at the station, the princess received her dog.
(can’t use ‘Upon’ this way)
… though with a slight change:
“Upon the princess’s arrival at the station, she received her dog.”
“Upon her arrival at the station, the princess received her dog.”
Hello David,
Welcome to the forums, though I’m not sure whether Molly will see your message as you are responding to a post she made 2 years ago. Are those examples direct from wordreference.com? The one about the princess seems a little out of the ordinary, though it serves to make the point.