Tea or coffee: idiomatismo preposicional (C2)

The two drinks arrived in Europe within a few decades of each other, both bitter, both stimulant, both requiring apparatus and ceremony, and within a century they had divided the continent along lines that had nothing to do with taste. Tea went where the empire went and acquired the manners of the drawing room. Coffee took the house of argument: the newsroom, the exchange, the room where a man could sit for an hour with a paper and still be considered employed. We inherit these arrangements as if they were preferences, and we defend them ___ the strength of nothing but habit and an accident of shipping routes. That is the interesting part. A preference this fiercely held ought to rest on something, and it does, but the something is a supply chain rather than a palate. Ask anyone to justify the choice and you will get a description of a mood, the pause, the clarity, the small daily punctuation, and every word of it would apply equally well to the other cup. What is being defended is not a flavour. It is a version of the self that came bundled with the drink, and versions of the self are not surrendered lightly.

Fonte: English for ALL (texto original).

Assinale a alternativa que completa corretamente a lacuna do texto.

A) by
B) on
C) at
D) in
E) with

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Resposta correta: B

On the strength of é locução prepositiva fixa que significa com base em, apoiado em, e é a única combinação consagrada com strength nesse sentido. By the strength of soaria como referência à força física empregada, além de não existir como locução causal na norma. In strength ocorre apenas em expressões como arrive in strength, com sentido de contingente numeroso, e não admite o complemento com of neste molde. At e with não formam locução alguma com strength precedido de artigo definido, resultando em sequências agramaticais.

Tea or coffee: idiomatismo preposicional (C2)

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