Xref: utzoo rec.arts.tv.uk:2011 alt.peeves:1232 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!bu.edu!bu-cs!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!mjh From: mjh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Matthew J. Henken) Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.uk,alt.peeves Subject: Re: Correct English (was: Maaahsterpiece Theatere) Message-ID: <18641@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Date: 19 Jan 90 22:36:34 GMT References: <1558@skye.ed.ac.uk> <2793@paperboy.OSF.ORG> Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU Followup-To: rec.arts.tv.uk Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 40 In article tale@cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes: >In article <2793@paperboy.OSF.ORG> dbrooks@osf.org (David Brooks) writes: >> Mea culpa. My reference is a grammar checklist that I remember from >> somewhere, in which the errors is illustrated within the rules: "Never >> use a preposition to end a sentence with", that sort of thing. > >"This is something up with which I will not put." > -- attributed to Winston Churchill > >It's a rather dumb rule which really doesn't exist as a rule of >grammar in the strictest sense, at least according to my _Dictionary_ >_of_Misinformation_. It is more a style rule than a grammar rule and >sometimes the convolutions required to follow it leave a sentence >sounding very unnatural. Let me support your position with a quote from Webster's Dictionary of English Usage copyright 1989: "As is not the case with some of the other long-lived topics examined in this book, 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 agaist propriety. Fowler terms the idea a 'cherished superstition.'" Now, perhaps this provides some ammunition to ward of attackers with... narrowly avoiding ending a sentence with a preposition, which I did not :-). By the way, the quote attributed is more accurately reported as: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put." according to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations Ob.Peeve: Administrators: There are more here at Dartmouth than there are professors, and they have more authority and influence on the students. Not my idea of a healthy educational institution. I can't even imagine the bull that students at larger schools have to put up with. (up with which they have to put?) -- "Basic error: to place the goal in the herd and not in single individuals! The herd is a means, no more! But now one is attempting to understand the herd as an individual and to ascribe to it a higher rank than to the individual--profound misunderstanding!!!" --Friedrich Nietzsche Matthew Henken, Dartmouth College