Channeling James Thurber, someone modestly named Starcreator recently offered "Help with prepositions" to the readers of the WordReference Forums. David Remnick should rush to recruit Starcreator right away -- no one this funny is writing for the New Yorker in these latter days.
Here's the whole piece:
I just joined this discussion and thus I'll just throw in my hat. The way I learned it and the way we grammarians still see it today, the ending of a sentence or clause with a preposition is wrong. Traditional English tells us that there are ways around it and if we look, simply, to the French we can see how things are supposed to be done - the pages on which the book was written, the store at which I bought the hat - do these not sound much more distinguished in written language? Let us look to the reason why it is acceptable today to end sentences with prespositions - in a word, laziness. People over the ages have left their prepositions to the end of their clauses and now because this is so widespread it has been accepted by grammarians as informally correct. I do not see many situations in which grammarians would except the "hanging" preposition, but I advise all of you to use it cautiously and, above all, only in spoken or colloquial language. Using it in written language would definitely harm your professionalism. I above all see no point in debating this though as English has no Academie Francaise to determine what is right or wrong and instead things are correct based on usage - hence, both you and I can be correct at the same time. But I will advise you that if I were ever marking a paper of yours you'd be docked marks for each and every preposition with which you ended a sentence. |
My favorite part is
Let us look to the reason why it is acceptable today to end sentences with prespositions - in a word, laziness. People over the ages have left their prepositions to the end of their clauses and now because this is so widespread it has been accepted by grammarians as informally correct.
Those slovens over the ages, leaving their "prespositions" lying around like half-eaten pizza crusts and cast-off underwear!
But no, my really favorite part is
Traditional English tells us that there are ways around it and if we look, simply, to the French we can see how things are supposed to be done - the pages on which the book was written, the store at which I bought the hat - do these not sound much more distinguished in written language?
Parbleu, évidemment! For what is it that one not knows more to look, simply, to the French for grammatical models? Oops, make that "models grammaticals".
And perhaps the crowning touch is the sly Straussian substitution of "except" for "accept":
I do not see many situations in which grammarians would except the "hanging" preposition...
Sheer comedic genius.
[Those who insist on spoiling a good joke with obsessive concern for the facts may be interested in these relevant Language Log posts:
An Internet Pilgrim's Guide to stranded prepositions
A Churchill story up with which I will no longer put
]