Posted on 05/18/2019 5:30:39 AM PDT by Moonman62
If you watch House of Cards, you might remember this scene from season one. (Warning: it contains the C-bomb, so don’t watch it if you’ll be offended by that!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=vaDoaCsgj_s
The joke is based on an entirely false grammar rule: “Thou shalt not end a sentence with a preposition.” Prepositions, remember, are words that describe the position of one thing in relation to another: at, to, in, of, about, from, above, etc. So you’ll hear people trying to obey this “rule” by saying things like this:
To what are you referring? (instead of What are you referring to?)
There is the person about whom I was speaking (instead of There is the person I was speaking about)
From where did he get his temper? (instead of Where did he get his temper from?)
But they needn’t bother, because every modern-day authority agrees there’s nothing wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition. The “rule” was dreamed up by John Dryden in a petty attempt to prove that he was a better poet than Ben Jonson. He invented some hogwash about how English should abide by the same preposition rules as Latin, which made no sense, since they’re different languages with, for the most part, very different rules.
So if anyone scolds you for saying “What are you looking at?” instead of “At what are you looking?”, you can shame them with your superior knowledge of both grammar and 17th-century poetry – or just send them the link to that YouTube clip above.
Or a proposition :)
I never followed the rule anyway, so I’m not sure what he is referring to.
I always prefer not to torture my sentences in order to follow this silly rule. It never made much sense, anyway.
It is ridiculous to impose Latin grammar rules on English. Shall we start declining nouns in a case structure, thereby confusing everyone?
What is it called when an undercover cop posing as a prostitute arrests a John?
A proposition ends in a sentence.
So what am I supposed to end a sentence with?
Interesting bit of information about the supposed formation of this rule. I always try to keep Dryden’s rule when writing. its more difficult when speaking.
These grammar rules are nonsense up with which I will not put!
Screw all that crap. I’m upset that I seldom ever see the Oxford comma used anywhere.
Tom, Dick and Harry (future legal problems . . . does the estate get divided up into 2 parts or 3? Legally, just 2)
Tom, Dick, and Harry (correct)
LOL
First good joke i’ve heard in a while :)
"A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with."
“This is the type of errant pedantry up with which I will not put.”
Winston Churchill
Well played.
...So what am I supposed to end a sentence with?
With what am I supposed to end a sentence
And I happen to like John Dryden's work.
Joking aside, I think avoiding a prepositional ending does sound cleaner, but it's like splitting an infinitive: there are times when it is simply ridiculous. It's not a point I'd quibble about.
I am constantly correcting my friends that they should not end a sentence with a preposition,
When one of them asked “Where are you at?”, I told him that you never end a sentence with a preposition.
His reply, which has now become standard in my circle of friends:
“Sorry; where are you at, a$$hole?”
Was it Churchill who said, “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”
Ping to Grammar Nazis...come on in.
LOL - I see what you did there!There, I see what you did.
Or something...
Grammar rules are like speed limits. Often they are ignored. But, they are there for a reason.
I will trade you the odd preposition for a complete attack on people using their pronouns in the wrong order (”Me and my friend.”
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