Prepositions at the Ends of Sentences

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Karen calling from Omaha, Nebraska.

Hi, Karen. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Karen.

Hi, thank you.

My question is about ending a sentence with a preposition.

Okay.

I got an email from a friend of mine congratulating me on a nice sentence structure for not ending a sentence with a preposition one time.

And he included a quote from Churchill that said,

Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

And I had heard that before, but I also remember hearing something maybe on NPR

Or reading an article that lots of authors have done it in literature like Shakespeare and Yeats and Shelley

And that it is okay.

So I just wondered what the answer is.

And what form would you like your answer in?

No, Karen, the short answer is you are absolutely right.

It’s perfectly legitimate to end a sentence with a preposition.

And that is an old rule that grew up when people were trying to apply the rules of Latin to English,

And they don’t always work.

And the other thing to tell your friend is that he has the Churchill quote wrong.

Churchill did not say that.

Oh, really?

No, he didn’t.

Yeah.

Well, I think he got it from a website.

And not only that, the point of the quote is that it was somebody’s response to a pedant, right?

It was somebody complaining.

First person was complaining about the preposition at the end of the sentence,

And the second person, to make a joke and point out how ridiculous that statement was,

Then supposedly made that statement about it’s something up with which I will not put.

Oh, I see.

So, like, doubly wrong.

So it’s fine to end a sentence with a preposition.

Churchill didn’t say that, and the quote is supposed to be making fun of the supposed rule rather than embracing it.

The quote has been attributed to Churchill.

If you look at Fred Shapiro’s Yale Book of Quotations, it’s in there attributed to him.

But as Grant said, he says, this is the kind of pedantic nonsense up with which I will not put.

So it’s different.

It’s not just about the prepositions at the end of the sentence.

Okay.

Well, thank you very much.

So congratulations.

You’re fine.

You’re totally fine.

Take care.

All right, bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye.

Bye.

And let me just say, for those of you who want to call and protest this claim about prepositions,

The email address is words at waywardrader.org or call us on the phone, 877-929-9673.

This is one of those things that the experts do not disagree about at all, right?

Right.

Even the most conservative language commentators refuse to accept the rule about not ending sense of the preposition.

We are unanimous on both ends of the language spectrum.

But the problem is that there have been all these teachers who have wrapped all these knuckles about that.

Yeah, I know.

But you don’t have to twist yourself in knots to avoid a preposition at the end of the sentence.

Again, that number is 877-929-9673 or email us words@waywordradio.org.