I know that these grammar posts are likely to open me up for harsh ridicule. I am telling people that there are rules to learn, and there are many who get hostile when they are told there are standards. In fact, the source which prompted my writing this post spent most of their post mocking good grammar and telling people not only that the rules can be broken, but they should. The source even went so far as to say that not ending a sentence with a preposition makes a person sound like a “pompous know-it-all,” then links to another source which contains several paragraphs of vicious mockery.
So, what I say to my readers is: I am laying down what I feel are logical reasons for not ending a sentence with a preposition. I feel that prepositions should be avoided at the end of a sentence whenever possible. There are, however, as with every rule, exceptions, even if they are rare. If anyone disagrees with me, know that I have no power to force anyone to hold to this grammar rule. I cannot make anyone agree with me. I can only attempt to convince. I will mention, however, that if anyone feels angry over my reasoning, since it is an opinion and not directed at anyone in particular, they might want to look in themselves to find out why it so offends them.
I would also like to note that this post is longer than many of my other posts because I am breaking down sentences and giving examples in hopes that I give those who want to learn every opportunity.
There are some who say that the rule of not using prepositions at the end of a sentence is outdated and should be relegated to the trash bin. Their reasoning is that this rule originated from Latin. In Latin, a preposition could not be placed at the end of sentences. Since English has evolved, these people say, it has, therefore, evolved beyond Latin, and the rule does not have any bearing on modern English.
I feel this is mostly unfounded, and I would like to give my reasons why. First, if we follow the reasoning that modern English has evolved beyond its Latin root, then it has evolved past all words with Latin roots. We would all be hard-pressed to have a normal conversation without such words.
This argument aside, let us consider other angles.
“His fists clenched and the muscles in his neck tensed. They had forced him to reveal himself by referencing a history he had made sure few knew of.”
Who will argue against me when I say that writing is supposed to provide a clear flow of thought for the reader to follow? I figure the number is few.
What purpose does the word “of” serve in that sentence? Absolutely none. Let me show you.
“They had forced him to reveal himself by referencing a history he had made sure few knew.”
This sentence means exactly the same thing as the version that ended with a preposition. He didn’t have to be careful that few knew of the history or that few knew about the history. He simply needed to be careful that few knew the history. That sentence ended with a preposition for the sake of ending with a preposition, and many sentences in modern writing do exactly that. Surely, the rule shouldn’t be broken just to prove it can be broken. There’s a saying, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
The original version is also detrimental. It gives the brain the sense of being interrupted and having to move to another thought before finishing the previous one. What if you cut this sentence into three essential sentences stating the facts bluntly? “They had forced him to reveal himself. He had been careful. Few knew of that history.”
These are complete thoughts. The brain needs nothing more. It is satisfied. This is a complete story. However, you can’t say “few knew of” and expect the brain to think you have finished the thought. Few knew of . . . of what . . . the history. Even if the history had been mentioned earlier in the sentence the brain knows that “of” prompts more, as does the word “around.” The brain automatically asks “around what?” Then it has to go back and say “Oh, yes. Around the thing that was mentioned three words before . . . before what? Before the word ‘around.’ Around what . . .”
Here is another example. It appears on my screen every time I connect my headphones to my computer.
“What device did you plug in? “
Now that we see how this can be detrimental to a smooth flow of thought, how can we fix it? There is actually a word that encompasses the concept of plugging something into something else. The word is “connect.”
“What device did you connect?”
No preposition is necessary, and removing the preposition actually makes the sentence stronger, because the sentence now ends on action. We also see the benefit of a strong vocabulary. It helps us find the words that best express our meaning.
Now, that we see there are cases where the preposition serves no purpose at the end of the sentence, let us look at how easy it is to not break the preposition rule.
“See what trouble that gets us into?”
Now, how would we move the words around to get the preposition off the end of the sentence? We could say, “See into what trouble that gets us.” This sentence is grammatically correct and would have been used in previous years. If you feel the sentence sounds strange, let me show you another way to avoid these pesky ending prepositions.
“See what trouble that causes us?”
Despite what the sentence says, I want you to see what trouble that saves us. Now, there isn’t even a preposition to end the sentence. Problem solved. More than that, did anyone notice how the sentence was weaker with the ending preposition?
On to the next example.
“Now we see what they are really about.”
Here we have another preposition at the end of a sentence. Again, trying to move that preposition deeper into the sentence would cause some awkwardness that might jar a reader out of the flow of thought. Instead, let’s see if we can use different words to say the same thing.
“Now we see their true purpose.”
Again we see that the second sentence is stronger. Why is this?
One reason is the simple fact that preposition is literally a positional word which is not as strong as a noun or a verb. Because of the second sentence we again notice that the preposition is unnecessary. What is necessary in a sentence is a noun and a verb, unless we consider single word sentences, which are commands, where the noun (subject of the sentence) aka, the person being commanded, is implied. Since a preposition is not always necessary, it stands to reason that it holds less power than a verb or noun which are necessary.
It is said that if there is something you want to bring home to your readers, end on that point or word. How often will you want your reader to focus on a positional word? This might be the case on occasion, but I think it is more likely we will have something more important to hold our readers’ focus.
Let me give another example. “I will let you know when I get the time narrowed down.” Consider how the mind would naturally progress. “I will let you know . . .” This is the first thing you want your reader to understand. What will you let them know? You will let them know when. When you do what? When you get the time? . . . no. If you needed to let them know when you have the time, the sentence would end there as “I will let you know when I get the time.” Obviously, there is something more. The question remains; when you do what? “. . . Narrow down . . .” Ok. Now you have the subject of the sentence and the action the subject does, but what receives the action? The time. The sentence now becomes, “I will let you know when I narrow down the time.” This also makes the sentence more active. In the first sentence we used the word “Narrowed” which always has more of an ‘already done’ aspect even if it is something you ‘will have done,’ meaning, in the future, aka not yet done. In the second, we use the words “when I narrow . . .” It will happen. It is imminent.
Now, let us talk exceptions. Dialogue is one exception. Dialogue is supposed to be written the way people would talk. Since most of us talk with prepositions at the end of our sentences, then it is acceptable to do so in dialogue. Are there other exceptions to the preposition rule? There might be, and there might not, I have not explored every possibility, but this is an obvious exception.
Now that we have taken that little detour, let us get back to the main point. If there is not a clear reason to indicate position, the preposition becomes a filler word along with any words that help introduce it.
“See what trouble that gets us into?” Vs. “See what trouble that causes?”
Notice how when we end with the preposition, we often end up with more words that fall short on power. This happens in many of my example sentences. We end up with quantity instead of quality.
This is not to say I believe that all of our writing should consist of short, choppy sentences. My stance is quite the opposite, which is a subject for another post. My point is that we don’t want fillers in our writing any more than we want fillers in our food. It has the same effect. If we see fillers in our food, we know that we are being cheated out of quality. We don’t appreciate it, and the same is true of fillers in our writing. Our readers might not realize what isn’t right, but many will sense it, and if they do, odds are they will resent it, making them stop reading our work and, possibly, avoid us as authors.
Before I give my closing arguments, I want to address a couple of paragraphs I saw on quoteinvestigator.com
“ In the past many books offering grammatical advice told readers that they must never end a sentence with a preposition. Years ago when Churchill solicited comments by circulating a draft of an important speech he received a criticism that included a correction to his text. One of his sentences was rearranged to comply with the preposition rule. An irate Churchill responded with one of the following …:
This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put …
This is the type of impertinence up with which I shall not put
“I enjoy this story and have retold it on numerous occasions because it demonstrates how clumsy a sentence can become when it is mechanically rewritten to comply with a nonsensical prohibition.”
First, I want to note that this story has been around for a while and has different versions. In the version above, it is written in a manner to make the person protecting the preposition rule immediately look like they only care about finding fault with someone. Other versions give varying context usually, but not always, villainizing the person who is correcting the grammar. My point is, this is a story that changes depending on if the teller has an agenda they want to promote. Despite this, people seem to enjoy using the story as an argument against the preposition rule, so I will address it.
I specifically want to address the last sentence. “It demonstrates how clumsy a sentence can become when it is mechanically rewritten to comply with a nonsensical prohibition.”
Let me tackle the sentences in question and see if my rewriting “to comply with this prohibition” is mechanical:
1. I will not put up with this sort of bloody nonsense.
2. I will not put up with this type of impertinence.
It isn’t even difficult to make the sentence end with something other than a preposition, and I have just proven that the “mechanical” rewriting of these sentences was not to comply with the preposition rule but to ridicule it. I was easily able to write those sentences while following the rule. Therefore, no matter who wrote those sentences or why, they were a deliberate mangling of a sentence in order to mock, berate, and belittle the preposition rule and those who adhere to it.
As I have demonstrated in this post, ending a sentence with a preposition weakens the sentence, not every time, but often. I pose that this is proof that Latin still has influence over the English language. If my readers don’t agree with the relevance of Latin, then I’m sure they see that ending prepositions can, in many cases, hinder good writing.
If you need more reason to avoid ending prepositions in your writing, consider the sample sentences I provided. The English language is like a puzzle, only, in this puzzle, there’s more than one correct way to organize the pieces. What we want to do as writers is to learn how to put those pieces together quickly and in the best arrangement. We need the viewer to see a clear picture when the puzzle is assembled, but we also want it to look good, pleasing to the eye. In the reader’s case, we want our meaning to be clear. Our writing should be powerful and a pleasure to read. Learning how to move prepositions from the end of the sentence by rewording and rearranging is good practice. Essentially, avoiding those end prepositions makes us consider how we use our words, and this is always a good thing for writers.
I propose an exercise. Go about your day, taking mental note of how many prepositions you use at the ends of your sentences. When you notice them, mentally rearrange or reword that sentence. You will notice those ending prepositions more and more. The rearranging and rewording will become easier as well.
Catching inefficiencies, weak sentence structure, and unattractive wording as you put the words down on the page and being able to fix them immediately reduces the need for editing later. I figure my readers will agree with me when I say that less editing makes it easier for us to enjoy the wonder.
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