Know, Know OF

[Riccioni]

Dear Alan,

As always, I found your last e-mail message informative and enjoyable at the same time.
If you don't mind, I have a grammar question I would like you to please answer.
Here it is.
At the very beginning of the message you write, «Do you know Umberto Eco?» — Would you please explain why «Do you know Umberto Eco?» and not «Do you know of Umberto Eco?» or «Do you know Umberto about Eco?» — What is the difference between them? How about saying/writing «Have you ever heard of Umberto Eco?»

I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you and keep up the excellent work,

Paolo

[Alan]

An interesting question Paolo.
«Do you know Umberto Eco?» means simply: is the name of Umberto Eco known to you? «know of» is not generally used in questions like this but is more often a statement:

«I know of Umberto Eco» means the name sounds familiar but that's about all I know but again it is mainly used with pronouns: I know of him/her/them and in conversation stress would be put on the preposition «of». — «Do you know about Umberto Eco?» changes the emphasis slightly and here you are asking whether someone knows what he has done or what has happened to him.

Finally «Have you ever heard of Umberto Eco?» suggests that your listener hasn't really heard of Umberto Eco and so you are going to tell them.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Adverbs