Wendi {at random}

We had a titillating grammar conversation at taekwondo tonight. Actually, we had our deliberation which was positively enchanting after the TKD class while standing around the parents' lounge all sweaty and breathless-like. On the agenda was the preposition-at-the-end-of-a-sentence dilemma. I've always been of the mind that some English constructions are just plain awkward if you manipulate the preposition from the end of the sentence to someplace else, say, for instance, under the couch, simply to avoid breaking this mother of all rules.

And with these words from Sir Winston Churchill, I am almost ready to rest my case:

“This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”

A Washington State University professor has a substantial list of common English errors that includes these non-errors. (Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English.) This site refers readers to The American Heritage Book of English Usage, which I did not write. From there, I paste these nuggets of English wisdom:

It was John Dryden, the 17th-century poet and dramatist, who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end a sentence. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. In fact, English syntax not only allows but sometimes even requires final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or That depends on what you believe in. Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying “This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.”

Even sticklers for the traditional rule can have no grounds for criticizing sentences such as I don’t know where she will end up or It’s the most curious book I’ve ever run across; in these examples, up and across are adverbs, not prepositions. You can be sure of this because it is impossible to transform these examples into sentences with prepositional phrases. It is simply not grammatical English to say I don’t know up where she will end and It’s the most curious book across which I have ever run.

So, bite me, John Dryden.

Click HERE to see other non-errors so you can impress your friends with your blatant disregard for schoolroom grammar. And click HERE to see the home page of the professor who maintains the site and his other projects. OK, that's where the grammar stuff is at. :)

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I leave you with Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader.

I groove on all the words around.
Ah ah ah.
As long as they are written down.
Ah ah ah.
Easy Reader, that's my name.
Ah ah ah.