[lit-ideas] Re: "Literally"
- From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 05 Sep 2004 18:26:01 PDT
>Is it now considered appropriate usage to end sentences with
prepositions? You who teach comp & rhetoric -- if a student hands a paper in
with a
sentence like the above, do you mark it as an error?<
Julie, what are you looking? Whom did you come with? It's not only OK now to end
sentences with prepositions; it always has been. (Surely, this is one thing
prepositions are good for--?) The 'rule' that this was somehow 'wrong' (because
it's wrong in Latin) was put forward by one Bishop Lowth, in 1762, in A Short
Introduction to English Grammar. (Lowth is also responsible for the prescription
against splitting infinitives.) There's no other authority behind these
prescriptions for stuffiness.
As Churchill said, 'This is a rule up with which I will not put.'
Robert Paul
Professor of Grammatical Anarchy
Mutton College
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