When did “by” change?
In Latin, “by” is known as the ablative of means (because the following noun uses the ablative case; “by” is “ab”, fwiw). In English, it used to be the same thing.
“He was rescued by [means of] an ATV.” “The ship was sunk by [means of] an iceberg.”
The active voice version seems to have died off long ago. “I rescued him by ATV” sounds archaic. “I rescued him with an ATV” is more usual.
I’ve been trying for years to avoid the accusative form. “I went by the post office” should mean that I went somewhere undefined by means of the post office, which is obviously nonsense. “I went to the post office” is accusative, not ablative and not “by”. “I went past the post office [on my way] to the grocery store” is also fine; English has the necessary prepositions.
Could this be drift? If someone is rescued, one asks “by whom?”, which is one of the few times that one can see the accusative case in English. The other obvious question, “by what?” is case ambiguous. “He was rescued by ATV” sounds wrong. “He was rescued with an ATV by me” is another obviously accusative case.
This is very much like the Southern “waiting on”. It makes the speaker sound stupid. “I’m waiting on Susan” may be quite cuddly, but while on top of Susan, what are you waiting FOR?
I just used “by” for “near” or “next to”. “You left it by the KitchenAide” is NOT a grammatically correct sentence! And I said it! Now, I’m publicly chastising myself.
English has lots and lots of prepositions. Poor “by” does not need to carry all this weight alone. Give some props to its friends.
BTW: Not all Southernisms are bad. I quite like “wreck” instead of “accident”. “I was in a wreck” is great. “I got in a wreck” is dubious, at best.
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