|
Writing Tip of the Month
July 2008
Where Is Your Preposition At?
A recently
received birthday card illustrates a commonly touted grammar rule:
Woman
One: Where's your birthday party at?
Woman Two: You're not supposed to end a sentence with
a preposition.
Woman One: Where's your birthday party at, bitch?
This
"rule" is actually a myth, notes The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (1996).
Its origin is attributed to John Dryden, who complained in 1672 that ending a sentence with
a preposition (e.g., about, at, in, of, on, to, with) was a common fault of writer Ben
Johnson and had become a fault of his own, too. Dryden ignored the fact that works by great
writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton include sentences with final prepositions.
His position may have been based on word placement in Latin and on the meaning of preposition,
which is "position before," suggesting it can't be placed at the end of a sentence.
In
1775, clergyman Robert Lowth took up the cause, asserting in his Short Introduction to English
Grammar that ending a sentence with a preposition is informal usage and writers wanting
an elevated style should avoid it. The New Fowler claims this is still the case, but
in many instances ending a sentence with a preposition is allowed or preferred, as in, "What
did you talk about?"
In reaction to a sentence awkwardly phrased to avoid
a final preposition, Winston Churchill illustrated the ridiculousness of the rule by reportedly
saying, "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put," rather than the
"rule-breaking" usage, "This is the sort of English that I will not put up with."
Although
at is not needed in the birthday exchange above, and the woman's question would be better
phrased by omitting it ("Where is your birthday party?"), Churchill's retort demonstrates
how language can sound stilted when some grammar "rules" are blindly followed.
|
