Grammar Snacks: The Preposition Proposition

This week's snack: Ending a Sentence with a Preposition

You didn’t have to attend a religious school to have had the Ten Commandments impressed upon you. Except for maybe a couple, the Commandments offer some useful rules to live by (note the stranded preposition), whether or not you subscribe to the religions they’re associated with (note a second stranded preposition). There are pragmatic things like not killing, not stealing, not having sex with your hot neighbor while your significant other is working late. Stuff like that. But do you remember the 11th Commandment? It’s not “Love your neighbor as yourself” (which, come to think of it, sounds like a potential violation of the third commandment mentioned above). No, the 11th Commandment instructs us not to end a sentence with a preposition.

According to Wikipedia, the Talmud of the Internet, the 11th Commandment states: “You can write in whatever funky-ass manner you like, but you shall not end a sentence with a preposition. Period. And we mean business.”1

So what’s the big deal? Why is it so wrong to close a sentence with a preposition? Oh, I’m sorry; did I say it was wrong? I don’t believe I did. Confused? Good. That’s what I’m here … ahem … for. Brand me a blasphemer, but I’m calling horse manure on this whole never-ever-end-a-sentence-with-a-preposition nonsense.

First of all, let’s identify this “scourge” of English grammar by its proper term: a stranded preposition. A stranded preposition occurs when a word such as at, to, for, from, in, out, of, with, et al., appears after, not before, the word it modifies (at the end of a clause or sentence). In other words, the orphaned preposition has been separated from its object and left to find its way back through a terrifying funhouse of words. Poor little buddy.

Behold examples of the stranded preposition:

• My appalling body odor is something I must deal with.
• Where do Rocky Mountain oysters come from?
• As his brain was severely impaired from a 20-year habit of huffing inhalants, Jerry Lee couldn’t remember all the local gas stations he was banned from.
• By tossing themselves into Boston Harbor, the Tea Party finally gave the American public what it had longed for.

We usually maroon prepositions when using a relative clause, posing a question (a.k.a. wh-fronting, which means moving a wh-word like what, where, or who to the front of a sentence), omitting a word (e.g., I don’t want to [do that]), or employing a phrasal verb (e.g., believe in). In most cases, you can fix a stranded preposition by moving it before the word it modifies (essentially, pre-positioning it) or rearranging the sentence. Here again are those four example sentences, but with a little body modification:

• My appalling body odor is something with which I must deal. (The preposition with modifies the relative pronoun which.)
• From where do Rocky Mountain oysters come? (The preposition from modifies the noun where.)
• As his brain was severely impaired from a 20-year habit of huffing inhalants, Jerry Lee couldn’t remember all the local gas stations from which he was banned. (The preposition from modifies the relative pronoun which.)
• By tossing themselves into Boston Harbor, the Tea Party finally gave the American public that for what it had longed. (In this example, the preposition for functions as a particle of the verb longed, constituting a phrasal verb. As a result, tweaking the sentence so that the offending preposition no longer appears at the end creates an awkward construction.)

Simple fixes, right? Sure. But as this Blasphemer said above, ending a sentence with (or stranding) a preposition is neither faulty nor improper. My point of view has historical precedence. According to legend, Winston Churchill was once corrected by an overzealous copyeditor for sticking a pesky preposition at the end of sentence. Winnie’s rejoinder: “This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put.” His alleged quip illustrates just how clumsy a sentence can be made to sound in order to avoid marooning a preposition.

Indeed, prevailing wisdom says it’s perfectly appropriate to strand a preposition (and the list of references below have my back on this). It’s even preferable, given the above examples. So if you find yourself finishing a sentence with a to, for, from, or with, ask yourself, “Is the sentence smooth? Is its meaning clear? Does it sound natural?” Answer yes, yes, and yes, and you’ve seen the light.

So go ahead: forsake the 11th Commandment, end a sentence with a preposition, and join me and my fellow grammar geeks in an exciting life of sin.

References:

• Common Errors in English Usage. Paul Brians (William, James and Company, 2nd Edition, 2008)
• The Grammar Bible. Michael Strumpf and Auriel Douglas (Henry Holt and Company, 2004)
• Guide to Grammar and Style, Jack Lynch, Rutgers University (http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/)

1 This quote no longer appears in the Wikipedia article devoted to the 10 Commandments. Some vandal must have deleted it.