A possibly apocryphal story has Winston Churchill turning over something he’d written to an aide for proofreading. The aide marked a sentence which ended in a preposition. Churchill’s reply was (to the effect of), "This is the sort of mindless nitpicking up with which I shall not put!" |
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Written By:
steverino
URL:
http://steverino.journalspace.com/
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Ah, but I always wondered just how many prepositions a coherent sentence can end with. (Oops, I just did it too...) The record holder, as far as I know, is this:But another quote, attributed to E.B. White, shows how silly we can sound by piling on too many prepositions at the end. Child supposedly says this to father, who has brought the wrong book upstairs for bedtime reading: "What did you bring me that book I don’t want to be read to out of up for?" |
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Written By:
Billy Hollis
URL:
http://
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"... the sort of mindless nitpicking up..."
The version I heard used "arrant pedantry" in place of "mindless nitpicking". |
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Written By:
timactual
URL:
http://
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So not. |
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Written By:
SkyWatch
URL:
http://
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Another old joke on these lines:
A Southern young man was admitted to Harvard. On his first day on campus, he approached another student and asked, "Could you tell me where the library is at?"
The other student responded snootily, "Perhaps that syntax is proper in the deep south, but at Harvard we know better than to end a sentence with a preposition."
The Southern boy then said, "All right. Could you tell me where the library is at, a55hole?" |
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Written By:
steverino
URL:
http://steverino.journalspace.com/
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OK McQ, you owe me for half a can of Lysol used to remove the odor from my office. |
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Written By:
Metzger
URL:
http://rantblog.mee.nu/
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