Are the prepositions "of" and "about" interchangeable?

Question

For example:
"...the industry is doing little to educate the consumers of the risk."
"...the industry is doing little to educate the consumers about the risk."
Please provide a reference if possible. thanks

Answer 1

The issue here is the verb "to educate". Should it be followed by the preposition "of" or "about"?

I checked various dictionaries with no definite answer. Here are some of the examples provided:

"She educated her younger daughter at home" (Lexicon, 1981).
"He was educated at the local school" (Lexicon, 1981).
"He was educated at a very good school" (Longman, 1978).
"to educate a person or thing" (Webster, 1973).

By analogy, if we compare "educate" and "know", we will see that both prepositions do make sense: "to educate of" and "to educate about" / "to know of" and "to know about".

In order to solve the problem, we can always make use of a strategy called "avoidance", that is, the speaker avoids using a difficult structure in favor of a more common or a simpler one: "... to make consumers aware of the risk" (without the definite article).

Answer 2

In your example, the word "about" is correct because you educate people ABOUT something.

However, you inform people OF something. So saying something like "The FDA has decided to provide consumers with more details of the risks involved in using pain killers like Aspirin."

The difference is in the context of the situation. So the answer to your question is NO, they are not interchangeable.

Answer 3

The prepositions are not interchangeable

if u cud read the sentence u have given
about the risk is more appropriate
cos about gives a more clearer picture of wat is being discussed