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From: Enrico C <use_replyto_address@despammed.com>
Newsgroups: alt.languages.english
Subject: Re: Prepositions after verbs
Date: Mon, 24 May 2004 10:08:10 +0000 (UTC)
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Roy Sigurd Karlsbakk | alt.languages.english
in <news:40b1b300$1@news.broadpark.no>
> migmam wrote:
>
>> Hello everybody.
>>
>> Question:
>>
>> is "Whom did you tell this story" equals or similar to "Who did you tell
>> this story to"?
>
> Shouldn't this be 'To whom did you tell this story'?
>
> Also, I thought it was a typical Bad Thing to end a sentence with a
> preposition, the word meaning 'putting in front of' or something (see
> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=preposition).
Hmmm... the page you linked to actually says:
QUOTE
Usage Note: It was John Dryden who first promulgated the doctrine that
a preposition may not be used at the end of a sentence, probably on
the basis of a specious analogy to Latin. Grammarians in the 18th
century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the
most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with
prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers
since the Renaissance. English syntax does allow for final placement
of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or I asked
her which course she had signed up for. Efforts to rewrite such
sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have stilted and even
comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to
don't know where she will end up or It's the most curious book I've
ever run across, are mistakenly thought to end in prepositions. One
can tell that up and across are adverbs here, not prepositions, by the
ungrammaticality of I don't know up where she will end and It's the
most curious book across which I have ever run. It has never been
suggested that it is incorrect to end a sentence with an adverb.
UNQUOTE
--
Enrico C - Not a native speaker
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