Quote:
Originally posted by confucy@Sep 29 2003, 12:59 PM
How can you teach kids in high school how to diagram sentences, and convince them you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition when the majority think that *at* is a noun! The objective case also seems to rule!
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Webster's Dictionary of English Usage says: "recent commentators --
at least since Fowler 1926 -- are UNANIMOUS in their rejection of the
notion that ending a sentence with a preposition is an error or an offense
against propriety." (Emphasis added.)
Henry Fowler (Dictionary of English Usage)
"It is a cherished superstition that prepositions must, in spite of the
incurable English instinct for putting them late [...] be kept true to their
name and placed before the word they govern. 'A sentence ending in a
preposition is an inelegant sentence' represents a very general belief. [...]
The fact is that the remarkable freedom enjoyed by English in putting its
prepositions late and omitting its relatives is an important element in the
flexibility of the language. The power of saying 'A state of dejection such
as they are absolute strangers to' (Cowper) instead of 'A state of dejection
of an intensity to which they are absolute strangers' or 'People worth
talking to' instead of 'People with whom it is worth while to talk', is not
one to be lightly surrendered."
From Bartleby.com:
"preposition ending a sentence. 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."
From Jack Lynch - Rutgers University:
"Along with split infinitives, a favorite bugbear of the traditionalists. Whatever the merit of the rule — and both historically and logically, there's not much — there's a substantial body of opinion against end-of-sentence prepositions; if you want to keep the crusty old-timers happy, try to avoid ending written sentences (and clauses) with prepositions, such as to, with, from, at, and in. Instead of writing "The topics we want to write on," where the preposition on ends the clause, consider "The topics on which we want to write." Prepositions should usually go before (pre-position) the words they modify.
On the other hand — and it's a big other hand — old-timers shouldn't always dictate your writing, and you don't deserve your writing license if you elevate this rough guideline into a superstition. Don't let it make your writing clumsy or obscure; if a sentence is more graceful with a final preposition, let it stand. A sentence becomes unnecessarily obscure when it's filled with from whoms and with whiches. According to a widely circulated (and often mutated) story, Winston Churchill, reprimanded for ending a sentence with a preposition, put it best: "This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put."
I can find more if you'd like me
to. :P