But why not? In some sentence constructions I find using the preposition at the end of the sentence comes out with a better cadence and more natural flow, and I find myself editing it out. I believe this is a practice we should get away from!
I believe this is a practice away from which we should get? shudder
i believe that the rule is long outmoded, at least in conversation.
Possible apocryphal, but Winston Churchill is alleged to have said, regarding the rule, “This is arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.”
An old joke:
"A Southerner stopped a stranger on the Harvard campus and asked, “Could you please tell me where the library is at?” The stranger responded, “Educated people never end their sentences with a preposition.” The overly polite Southerner then apologetically repeated himself: “Could you please tell me where the library is at asshole?”
It is a stylistic issue that somehow got represented as a grammar rule when it is not. Good writers can feel when it is the ideal construction and when it isn’t.
Basically, the supposed “rule” is simply wrong. In English, it is often perfectly correct to end a sentence with a preposition. However, this erroneous “rule” has been so thoroughly instilled by many elementary school teachers that even knowledgeable people avoid it because so many people think it’s wrong.
From here
See also here
However, in this particular case ending a sentence with a preposition is grammatically incorrect. This can be seen by rephrasing the question: “The library is at where?” “Where” is an adverb and so cannot be the object of a preposition. “At” is superfluous and should be dropped. This has nothing to do with the preposition’s position. However, confusion with this kind of situation may have reinforced the supposed “rule.”
The way I had heard the joke:
A Southern lady takes her seat on an airplane and gives a friendly greeting to the lady sitting next to her, “So, where y’all from?”
“I’m from a place where we don’t end our sentences with prepositions.”
“Oh, o.k. So, where y’all from, bitch?”
In this case “from” is not superfluous.
At first glance it appears we once again violate “‘Where’ is an adverb and so cannot be the object of a preposition”, as rephrasing would give us: “Y’all are from where?” or “From where are Y’all?” Both more awkward than “Where y’all from?”
Not being a grammatical scholar (offering conjecture in GQ!) I would suggest that “from where” is some kind of compound adverb construction type thingy. Compare the German “Woher”.
Here is my own take on the issue. We have transitive verbs, intransitive verbs, and many many verbs used both ways. Think of prepositions as being transitive adverbs and then you see that many (if not all) of them can be used intransitively too. I would probably never say, “Where is the library at?”, but it does not particularly offend me. I see the “at” simply as an adverb that could well be omitted.
I certainly agree that there is no such rule in ordinary English grammar since nearly all users do not obey it. My explanation above does not authorize the usage; it merely puts it on a more formal basis.
My favorite joke about this:
The young boy’s father was a fanatic about proper grammar, and his particular pet peeve was ending a sentence with a preposition. So when the lad asked at dinnertime if he could have cake for dessert if he ‘ate his vegetables up’, the father went ballistic. After a tirade about grammar, he sent the offending child straight to bed.
Later on, he realized that he’d come on way to strong. By way of apology, he picked his son’s favorite book from the shelf, and went up to his bedroom to read to him. But when he opened the door, the boy asked suspiciously, “What did you bring that thing to read to me out of up for?”
At last sighting, the father was still running full speed away from his home and screaming.
Ending with a preposition is fine, if not unavoidable, when the word is part of a compound term; e.g., “throw up”. One would never have the conversation:
“Up are you throwing?”
“Yes, up I threw.”
(Presumably, “up”, in this case, is not actually functioning as a preposition.)
Then there was a prisoner who went up to a really rough and tough character, and asked him if he’d like to bunk with him that night . The tough guy whipped out a shank and stabbed him to death.
The poor guy ended his sentence with a proposition.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/stranded-prepositions.html
“What should he come up from out of in under there for?”
Overheard by James Thurber: “…there isn’t a better place to get something in your eye out in.”
What is the X in?
Who is the X with?
Where is the X at?
-FrL-
This question came up before, and one poster presented a cite from some. . . uh, “language rules person” from back in the early 18th or 19th century who said it was a bad practice. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to locate the thread, so I suspect it’s long gone.
Then of course there was the little boy who complained to his father that he didn’t want his bedtime story to be about Australia.
“Daddy, why did you bring that book I didn’t want to be read to from about Down Under up for?”
Even though down and under are hardly prepositions in that sentence, I find it cute.
And then Daddy’s halting apology was interrupted by the bratty kid saying "Will you get your explanation of what you brought that book I don’t like to be read aloud to out of about Down Under up for over with? :rolleyes: "
I would simply say, “Could you please direct me to the library.”
And if the book’s subject matter were Australian it could be:
"What did you bring that thing to read to me out of about Down Under up for?
It pays to read the whole thread, doesn’t it?
I’ve read at least one grammar expert who said the “rule” cannot actually be found in any grammar rule book. Seems to be a fake rule.
This post on Language Log by Mark Liberman seems to indicate that the idea originated with the poet John Dryden in 1672.
The style of written and spoken English has changed a good deal since then (I doubt anyone today would recommend writing, as Dryden did, that “Jonson writ not correctly”) but even then it’s clear that having the preposition at the end of the sentence was the most usual usage, and that there is not, and never has been, any natural rule of English grammar that prevents it.
The curiosity is that so many people still believe that it’s wrong, despite the fact that if they ever troubled to look it up they’d find that every authority agreed that sentence-final preposition is not only acceptable, but occasionally obligatory.
**Colibri **got it with the reference to forcing English to conform to rules of Latin grammar. Same thing for split infinitives, regardless of what my otherwise very intelligent HS English teacher used to tell us.