In the example of “where did the pen come from?”
It certainly depends on the context, but I think we can phrase this sentence in lots of different ways:
Who made this pen?
Where was this pen found?
Where did you find this pen?
What is the origin of this pen?
She’s an English major.
I would use “Where is my pen?”
That too.
“Whence cameth this pen” is the correct phrasing IMO …
in my view, panaccione, it is just a weird approach to handle the English language. just try to maintain you sentence stream and use proper and organized form of sentence till end instead of worrying it may be ended with any preposition and other terminology, etc.
Wherefore didst this pen appeareth on mine desk?
Earlier thread, for what it’s worth.
You do know that “this” (and in your previous example,“it”), aren’t prepositions, right?
But “where did the pen come from” encompasses all those questions, which might be what you want. Your rephrasings are actually different questions.
Yes. That would be the unambiguously correct way of phrasing it. Part of my point is taking exception to “where is my pen at” is not so much the preposition at the end; it’s that it’s redundant and a colloquialism. That particular usage is peculiar and should not be lumped in with the typical examples of ending a sentence with a preposition. “Where are you from?” or “I have no money to buy food with” are standard examples of prepositional stranding, and there is no problem with them as written.
One of the Fumblerules of Grammar:
Don’t use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Me too. No one needs to tell us what a pen uses to write, so “ink” is redundant.
I guess he ate humble crab with pie.
You need to say “ink pen” to tell it apart from a pin, for dialects that pronounce both words the same.
See–I know it’s humor, but that is actually an example of prepositional stranding that I would consider “non-standard” or even “incorrect.” The “with” doesn’t go with anything, and it’s not a sentence I personally would ever think of uttering. It sounds ungrammatical to my ears. But that’s not what most writers and speakers do, in my experience, when stranding prepositions. “Prepositions are words you should never end a sentence with” is more along the lines of typical prepositional stranding. You know, sentences that some English teachers apparently insist must be re-written in the “[preposition] which/whom” form to be “correct” (or otherwise completely re-written.) In other words, some may insist that my example should be written “Prepositions are words with which you should never end a sentence.” That’s not the greatest example, as I’d simply write “You should never end a sentence with a preposition,” but I’m trying to shoehorn something that works into Safire’s silly grammar joke.
Another more common example would be a question like “who are you going to prom with?” rather than the stilted “with whom are you going to prom?” that the pedants would insist on. (<– And I wonder how many would incorrectly flag that a stranded preposition and not a phrasal verb.)
Diane: *“Forget the piano. Let me be the instrument you play on.” *
Sam: “Diane, do you realize you just ended that proposition with a preposition?”
By whom? In what context? In ordinary speech? In a post on a message board? On a paper for a class? In a newspaper or magazine? In an academic book?
There’s no meaning to “standard” or “non-standard” let alone “correct” without taking the context and the formality of the use into account. And even there, the only standards that anyone recognizes is what good authors would do in that context. There is no outside body that regulates correctness.
Good authors - by which I mean the body of writers who produce the standard prose we read in books and magazines and newspapers and the online equivalents - do end sentences with prepositions frequently. If they do so, then who are the better than good writers who can correct them?
You’re preaching to the choir. I’m primarily descriptivist in my approach. But I do think *that particular construction *: “Don’t use a preposition to end a sentence with” sounds “off” to my ears and is not a typical example of prepositional stranding that would be made by a native English speaker. I could be wrong. If it is a usual construction, fine. I don’t think most speakers of English would naturally put a “with” there at the end, and I think that is a Safirian construction used to make a silly joke.
Remember, I am completely pro-ending a sentence with a preposition. I just don’t think that’s a good example of how one is normally constructed even in off-the-cuff conversational English.
No, I didn’t. What are they?