Never end a sentence with a preposition

Post Reply New Topic

Does anybody remember this video from Beavis & Butthead Do America?



It's very common in English to end a sentence with a preposition, even though that kinda defeats the whole idea of a preposition (that they are "pre-" (before) position and introduce the words in question). A sentence like this in English is "Did you find the room he went into?" This sounds very natural, but grammarians may get on you for it, and say you should say "Did you find the room into which he went?" which is wordy as all heck and sounds aloof. The more natural sentence gets rid of the relative pronoun.

Winston Churchill made fun of this when a publisher changed around one of his sentences to fit this rule. He wrote:

Of course, the normal conversational way of saying it, which sounds better to this native speaker's ear, is, "This is the sort of English I will not put up with." Of course, this sentence ends with not just one, but two prepositions, which ought to be a grammarian's nightmare. Nevertheless, it sounds better and dispenses of the relative pronoun "which", making it more efficient. The sentence doesn't need a relative pronoun.

Interestingly, this is NOT allowed in German:

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/german/hmr/Gra ... ative.html

In German, you must always use a relative pronoun, it must agree with the noun being described, and if you use a preposition it must always go before the relative pronoun.

If you make an effort to not end a sentence with a preposition, you will sound like a person from Victorian times or previous to Victorian times.

That’s an arbitrary rule made up by people who tried to shoehorn English into Latin grammar. English is not Latin. In English, the noun phrase linked to the verb by a preposition works much like a direct object if you regard the preposition as a modifier of the verb. Prepositions can very much be ended with by clauses and sentences.

I know a few girls into Analytical Linguistics who would like you

It doesn't look like this prohibition has ever been natural for English. From Oxford Dictionaries website:

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011 ... positions/

It looks like we haven't just been ending sentences with prepositions since the Victorian era.

EDIT: It looks like Dutch is similar, but perhaps it's more restrictive in Dutch, only being allowed for directional constructions and r-pronouns (I'm trying to get my head around what I'm reading here), and in German its usage is very limited:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding

EDIT 2: The article quotes a source, saying it's pretty much always been with us in English:

The 26 Rules of English Grammar:

1. Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
2. Just between you and I, the case of pronoun is important.
3. Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into English .
4. Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects.
5. Don't use no double negatives.
6. Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers.
7. Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
8. A writer must be not shift your point of view.
9. About sentence fragments.
10. Don't use run-on sentences you got to punctuate them.
11. In letters essays and reports use commas to separate items in series.
12. Don't use commas, which are not necessary.
13. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
14. Its important to use apostrophes right in everybodys writing.
15. Don't abbrev.
16. Check to see if you any words out.
17. In the case of a report, check to see that jargonwise, it's A-OK.
18. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.
19. About repetition, the repetition of a word might be real effective repetition - take, for instance the repetition of Abraham Lincoln.
20. In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.
21. Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.
22. It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.
23. Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.
24. Consult the dictionery to avoid mispelings.
25. To ignorantly split an infinitive is a practice to religiously avoid.
26. Last but not least, lay off clichés.



***

T minus 79 and counting.

^ Gosh, I love that post.

Boy, there are so many grammar rules, and yet somehow they don't necessarily make it easier to understand what somebody is say.