There is no one else who can take your place...

[sebastian_rooks]

Since my last post, I have learnt it is perfectly good and proper to end a sentence with a preposition in English. Now I want to end all my sentences with prepositions! How liberating! XD XD XD XD XD

Comments

[noodletail]

Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have stilted and even comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying “This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.”

:D

I wish we were taught more grammar at school. *le sigh*

[sebastian_rooks]

Heh. Did you see the small writing down the bottom? You were in fact quite right - "out" isn't a preposition. :)

[anonymous]

Would you care to cite the source of your newfound freedom in expression of the English language? Not that I mind if it's right or wrong, frankly there are far more annoying desecrations of English than ending sentences with prepositions (this post may itself contain examples) $

[sebastian_rooks]

I cite The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition and The Chicago Manual of Style, Fifteenth Edition (pp. 188-189):

The traditional caveat of yesteryear against ending sentences with prepositions is, for most writers, an unnecessary and pedantic restriction. As Winston Churchill famously said, 'That is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.' A sentence that ends in a preposition may sound more natural than a sentence carefully constructed to avoid a final preposition. Compare Those are the guidelines an author should adhere to with Those are the guidelines to which an author should adhere. The 'rule' prohibiting terminal prepositions was an ill-founded superstition.

And here is a reply to a question on the matter from an editor of the CMOS.

(If you click on the American Heritage link above you'll also see a section from Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.0.1) that says the same thing, but I don't consider this a very authoritative source.)

Nerd

[ah_stuper_steve]

Nerd