Ending Sentences with Prepositions

You have words - now what do you do with them?
anders
Lexiterian
Posts: 405
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:46 am
Location: Sweden

Re: FINAL PREPOSITIONS

Postby anders » Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:22 pm

DUE TO MY BRAININJURY
Mine was due to a stroke. Is it possible for you to write your posts off line in for example MS Word? Then you will 1) have access to a spellchecker that might help in removing typos when intention and hands don't agree, 2) be able to, when ready, convert the lot to lower case using the F3 key. If sentence initial letters won't be capitalized, I suppose nobody would find it unusual. There are lots of posters on the 'net who don't use capitals. Insome cases, the reason might be that their native script makes no upper/lower case distinction.

There's a fascinating variety of "r" sounds. Being fairly familiar with the Swedish assortment, I find it easy to imitate the flapped Spanish r and its rolled rr, as well as the Parisian (or German) r. On r's, there is an interesting way of using them in a variety of Swedish: As initials, they almost resemble [o] or [w]; in other positions they are regular flapped IPA[r]'s.

And don't make any conclusions regarding my preferences, just because of my interest in the use of the r's.

When not writing in my capacity as a translator, I freely break many rules that I was taught. And I love starting a sentence with a conjunction, not solely to parahprase/joke with Old Testament translations, but because I think it often makes sense. And fortunately, we never had a rule like Safire's Fumblerule #49: "Never Use Prepositions to End Sentences With." But one should never generalize (9).

Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague. They're old hat, seek viable alternatives. (39)
Irren ist männlich

Perry
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 2306
Joined: Wed Mar 29, 2006 9:50 am
Location: Asheville, NC

Postby Perry » Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:06 pm

Anders,

I never knew that you had suffered a stroke. I will say that it's been a stroke of luck to have you as a friend; even if our contact has been limited to this, and the old, Agora.
"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening all at once. Lately it hasn't been working."
Anonymous

anders
Lexiterian
Posts: 405
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:46 am
Location: Sweden

Postby anders » Sun Jun 04, 2006 8:28 am

Thanks, Perry,

Careful spellchecking and time to spare saves me from displaying many of the sometimes quite funny typos occurring in my first post versions. It's a pencil-large infarction, and I hope it is obvious that it didn't hit the left brain and its language centres.

It's a great excuse anyway for odd behaviour and "creative" theories...
Irren ist männlich

Davekent
Junior Lexiterian
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2006 10:12 am

Back to Ending Sentences with Prepositions. . .A Joke

Postby Davekent » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:52 am

Reminded me of a joke :D I saw the other day:

A southern belle and a snooty New Yorker (insert your favorite city) were seated next to each other on a plane.

The southern belle, in her usual friendly manner, turns to the New Yorker and asks: "so where are y'all from?" To which the New Yorker replies, "from somewhere sophisticated enough to know that it's not correct to end a sentence with a preposition."

. . .To which the southern belle replies "Ok, in that case let me rephrase my question. . ."So where are ya'll from, BITCH."

Stargzer
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 2578
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:56 pm
Location: Crownsville, MD

Postby Stargzer » Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:02 pm

From Dr. Goodword's article Will I be Arrested if I End a Sentence with a Preposition?

A Southerner stopped a stranger on the Harvard campus and asked, "Could you please tell me where the library is at?" The stranger responded, "Educated people never end their sentences with a preposition." The overly polite Southerner then apologetically repeated himself: "Could you please tell me where the library is at, you jerk?"

While editing the proof of one of his books, Winston Churchill spotted a sentence that had been clumsily rewritten by the editor to eliminate a preposition at the end. The elder statesman mocked the intention with a comment in the margin: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put."
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee


Return to “Grammar”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot] and 10 guests