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From: David Ward <>
Subject: [TMG] OT - Terminal prepositions and the English language
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 11:44:59 +0100


Isn't the English language marvellous - most of us speak it but very few
agree about it.

""Of"", an innocent blameless little word, never did anyone any harm and
now its being subjected to a third degree.

Seriously though, how we use the language is not all that important so long
as we understand what we are saying and those listening to and reading it
can also do that.

The Canterbury Tales, not the modern translated version, is one such
illustration. Another I recently came across was the author, the late
Patrick O'Brian - who married a distant cousin of mine - whose mastery of
English used at the beginning of the 1800s is quite magnificent.

Another was R.F.Delderfield and so we could go on

Dave
Utrecht Holland

Darrell wrote:
> Well, in a word, no. The phrase "... place of which I have never
> been within ..." does not improve on my previous effort. If one
> must, try, "You are making me homesick for a place, within 3,000
> miles of which I have never been."
>
> The rule is that a preposition is something one should not end
> an English sentence with. [grin] That is an unfortunate, and
> inappropriate, borrowing from Latin grammar. English speakers
> have insisted on using prepositions adverbially and terminally
> since the language made the change from inflected to positional,
> and they show no signs of thinking that these are ways that need
> to be mended. Even if some English formalists think this is a
> practice up with which they will not put.
>
> Now back to bed with me. I get too curmudgeonly when I check my
> e-mail late at night....
>
> Darrell
>
>
> Darrell A. Martin
> a native Vermonter in exile in Illinois
>

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