Sunday, September 25, 2011

Prepositions

 

There is a rule of grammar that a preposition should not be used to finish a sentence on.  That's what I am writing this for.  It's an interesting story and worth reading about. 

There is also a story that Sir Winston Churchill was once taken to task by a reporter for saying “This is something I will not put up with.”  When the reporter asked how it was that Sir Winston, one of the greatest speakers and writers in the English language, would finish on a proposition, he supposedly responded “Very well then, this is something up with which I will not put.”

Although there are numerous sites that credit that saying to Churchill, no one has ever been able to source where and when he is supposed to have said it.

I mention all of this because of an item in last Saturday’s Column 8 of the Sydney Morning Herald:

''Overheard at the Harold Park Hotel tonight, and luckily I did not have to adjudicate,'' writes William Ryan, publican thereof:
Local: ''Tell me, mate, where you are from?''
Pedant: ''I hail from a part of the world where we do not end a sentence with a preposition.''
Local: ''Sorry. Where you are from, dickhead?''



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