Ending a sentence with a preposition...
Mark Israel (misrael@scripps.edu)
Mon, 31 Jul 1995 00:30:21 GMT
In article <3v9og8$83l@news.admu.edu.ph>, 910267@admu.edu.ph (Orion Perez Dumdum) writes:
> Did you ever get to wonder why it is sometimes automatic
> for most English speakers like us to end some of our sentences with
> prepositions? Did you ever wonder why "Authorities" on the English
> language think that doing so is wrong?
Name one such "authority".
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.)
> Remember next time when someone corrects you for ending a sentence in
> a preposition... Tell him/her what I have just explained to you, and
> enlighten him/her with something that most "Authorities on English" do
> not seem to realize. ^^^^
99.5% of the time that ending a sentence with a preposition is
mentioned on alt.usage.english, it's trotted out as a straw man by
anti-prescriptivists trying to discredit us prescriptivists.
Your claim about what "most 'Authorities'" believe is wildly
inaccurate.
Followups to alt.usage.english only.
--
misrael@scripps.edu Mark Israel
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