On/In the beach | The Grammar Exchange

I do agree with Richard!

Interestingly, Momo, “swim in/at the beach” yields a far different result from “swimming in/ at the beach.” While the proportion of hits for “swimming in the beach” is more than 13 times of that of “swim at the beach” (as you reported and as I found, too), we find that “swim at the beach” is 77 times as frequent. as “swim in the beach.”

Results 1 – 10 of about 45,600 for “swim at the beach”

Results 1 – 10 of about 585 for “swim in the beach”.

_______

The New York Times Archives has 13 examples of “swimming at the beach,” like these:

“¢ … Australian pastimes: swimming at the beach. ”Restricted by … , lured to the beach by a new outreach program …

“¢ … playing golf, swimming at the beach in a weird cutaway bathing …

“¢ … a group. swimming at the beach that afternoon, a few … happy couple strolled the beach the night before, and … go up to the beach bar for a quick lunch …

The New York Times Archives has 0 examples of “swimming in the beach.”

The Archives has 13 examples of “swim at the beach,” too, and 1 example of “swimming in the beach, like this one, in which “beach” modifies “water,” so the phrase is “swimming in the water,” not “swimming in the beach.”
_______

It may be that many – I saw a few, but there may be thousands more – of “swimming in the beach” are part of a phrase like “swimming in the beach water.” It may be that “swimming in the beach” is a saying or song that we don’t know. It may be that “swimming in the beach” is part of another English that we are less familiar with.

This is indeed very, very interesting.

Rachel