If you take a bus somewhere, do you say “I’m on the bus” or “I’m in the bus”? Which is more proper?
While you drive a car, most people say they are “in the car” and not “on the car”, but when it’s a bus some say “on the bus”. “On the car” some people would think your like sitting on top of it.
You are not on top of the bus usually, so you would be in the bus. My English teacher wife would say putting gas on the car because her whole family said that on the farm. It took a while telling her not to put gas on my fresh wax, but then quit putting gas in at all and I have to do it. I just say I’m going to get gas which usually is try depending on what I ate, or et as my grandmother would say.
That’s what I’ve always used as well. “On the bus, in the car”. No logical rhyme or reason, just what I’m used to . I had a co-worker friend, immigrant from Taiwan, he’d ask me these sorts of questions. He pointed out never-ending examples of illogical word usage in common English. The best I could say in the way of an explanation usually was: “common idiomatic usage”.
I go back to the twilight zone where there was a guy on the plane not in it. But heh, as usual here just pick the answer you want. There is no right or wrong. Everyone gets 100%.
Generally, if you are telling someone you are going somewhere by bus, then you are “on” the bus , that’s the correct usage. There are some cases where you might say in the bus, inside as opposed to outside, but generally you would say you are riding on the bus. It’s a nuance of the English language.
and
There is someone IN my bed.
There is a book ON my bed.
EXCEPTIONS Now let’s turn to the exceptions…
Although we use in with cars, use on for larger vehicles, like planes, trains, and buses (“They have wifi ON the plane”).
We made you look anyway. Ran across the cartoon today with the husband telling the wife she has been correcting him for 30 years. The wife said 31. Wife didn’t think it was funny.
Now that I I think about it, one of my supervisors had an employee that argued a lot. When he talked to him about how much he argued, he said no I don’t. Banging head against wall.