I’ve heard before that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition. However, I see a lot of that going on here at The Dope and I’m wondering why is it bad?
Also, I’m not even sure if I understand the concept fully. Feel free to elaborate on the answer as much as you desire.
It’s the sort of thing up with which one should not put.
Stranger approaches a student on an ivy-league campus, says “Hey Buddy, where is the library at?” Student frowns and says “Pardon me, but here at Harvard, we don’t end sentences with a preposition.” Stranger says “Ok, where’s the library at, Asshole?”
No, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s some kind of grammar superstition, and I’m pretty sure even most prescriptivist grammarians today say it’s fine. There might be some instances in which it’s best avoided, but there’s no general proscription against it in English. I’m not sure I ever was formally taught that ending a sentence with a preposition was incorrect. Hell, I’m pretty sure even Strunk & White, who tend to be grammatically conservative, say it’s okay.
Well, it’s obvious. A preposition is a word that goes before another word. If a word is at the end of a sentence, it’s not going before another word, so it can’t be a preposition. It must be something else, perhaps an adverb or a particle.
(Slightly more seriously, it’s a kind of sentence structure that English inherited as a Germanic language. Latin doesn’t do it that way, and because Latin didn’t do it, English grammarians thought that it must be wrong in English. It isn’t.)
Because there are those who believe that language should proceed logically. These people believe that Latin is a logical language. In Latin a sentence ending with a preposition would be meaningless or, at best, bad Latin. Therefore, since Latin should be the model for English, one should not end a sentence with a preposition.
The problem is, language does not proceed logically, but socially (or naturally). Consequently, if you feel like ending your sentences with prepositions, then, hey, go to!
Another name for this is preposition stranding:
It’s now generally believed that the rule against it was made up out of nowhere and never did make any sense.
That whrilling sound you hear is my English-Teacher-From-Hell spinning.
This is something we will NOT tolerate!
Next up:
That/which
as/like
accept/except (do not believe this is even in play)
sex/gender (just because adolescent males giggle at the word “sex” does not men we change the dictionary. No, I do NOT wish to hear “cite” (or is that "site’?) from discretionary-crap “dictionaries”.
Where we place the word “only”. Hint: Anybody proudly proclaiming that they “Only Sleep With the Best” are probably getting exactly what they deserve
But those examples actually have incorrect usages for the most part. Preposition stranding is not incorrect in English grammar.
Here is my take on it. There are two separate issues. One involves a genuine preposition whose object–usually a Wh word, has moved. "Whom (or who, I am not getting into that) did you come with? Just because Latin didn’t allow that (if indeed Latin, a free word order language didn’t) doesn’t mean it isn’t perfectly correct in English, which it is. The second point, not taught in HS English, but obvious if you think about it is that, just as there are transitive and intransitive verbs–and many that can be used either way, there are transitive and intransitive “prepositions”–the latter are called adverbs==and many that can be used either way. Consider, “The plane took off”. Off what? Then sometimes it is transitive, but you omit the object, “I put my hat on [my head, presumably].”
Interestingly, in French, at least in Quebec, you can even say the equivalent of, “I went out with” (“Je suis sortie avec”). It apparently means I went out with an unspecified someone. That doesn’t fly in English, which shows how idiosyncratic these things can be.
It is amazing how much damage was done to English grammar by people convinced that Latin was perfect and rules had to be instituted to force English to be more like Latin. Don’t get me started on split infinitives.
Even Fowler, who is often described as a “grammarian’s grammarian” called it a “cherished superstition.” Read here:
We should agree to not obey silly Latin rules when we’re speaking English.
Well said, John.
Latin rules are for Latin.
In my experience, most english teachers, even ones from Hell, have little training in how language actually works. If you’re still in contact with said teacher, this may be an opportunity to reeducate.
The teacher in question was my mother, who graduated cum laude, OSU, at age 19.
One of her strong suits was Latin.
When I say “from Hell”, I know whereof I speak.
Not “that I speak of”.
Look at the bright side, I’ 63 with advanced kidney failure, as well as the OA to limit my typing.
I’ll be gone soon enough…
As an aside, there is a literary device (I forget its name ) sometimes used in Latin poetry in which the object of a preposition is placed BEFORE it, sometimes not even adjacent to it (Latin poetry can be like a jigsaw puzzle ).
So it might not even be a hard and fast rule in Latin either. Then again, it’s poetry so rules are bent.
See, I just think it sounds clearer to follow this rule but the drawback is that it can become repetitive and tiring.
pulykammell, I’m just going to use your sentence as an example.
I would think the sentence should read, “No there’s nothing wrong with ending sentences in the form of a preposition.”
This helps by making the sentence clear and eliminates any ambiguity, but at the same time is a bit unnecessary considering the “it” should be understood.
What are the upsides to following this rule? What are the drawbacks?
My brother at the dinner table once asked for a fork. Somebody asked why he needed a fork. He replied that he needed “something to eat his crab with”.
Decades later he still can’t live it down as nobody knows exactly what “crab with” is substance wise.
The fact he was a little grammar nazi back in the day was just icing on the cake.
Once again, the answer is that you don’t end sentences with prepositions. None of the examples given so far has actually ended a sentence with one.
What you have seen is the particle of a phrasal verb. Some verbs in English have more than one word:
“put up with” “talk about” “put on” “put up” “throw up”
The particle changes the meaning of the verb. Thus:
“put” = “to place”
“put up” = “to preserve, usually by canning”
“put up with” = “to tolerate.”
“talking” = “speaking”
"talking about = “discussing a subject.”
Particles are almost always words that are also used as prepositions, so people mistake one for another. But few people actually use a construction that actually is a preposition, like
*He is going to.
*She eats with
Wow. I knew this would be posted in this thread at some point. To be honest, I was going to do it, but the first response? Talk about being quick off the tee.