Re: Prepositions ending sentences

Subject: Re: Prepositions ending sentences
From: Jim Walsh <jimw -at- TENNESSEE -dot- SC -dot- TI -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 13:04:11 CDT

Barb:

Have my permission to end sentences with a preposition. What's worse, the
preposition at the end or some clumsily reworded sentence that is a strain
to read and understand. It's like the quote marks after the period or comma --
maybe good in its day (when the rule came out), but impractical and sometimes
misleading. Excuse me if I don't conform.

-- Jim Walsh jimw -at- tennessee -dot- sc -dot- ti -dot- com (it's for Tennessee
Williams -- I live
in Texas)

* Barbara Philbrick writes:

* I've got one of those niggling questions - how do other people feel about
* ending sentences with prepositions?

* The _Handbook_of_Technical_Writing_ says to leave them if they fall naturally
* (but check the wording of the sentence to make sure it isn't an awkward
* construction), but I've worked with two writers recently who changed
* sentences as follows to avoid ending the sentence with a preposition:

* Original: The number the system begins numbering orders at.
* Change: The number at which the system begins numbering orders.

* My basic philosophy is to write so that users aren't distracted by unnatural
* structures, which I think the "at which" and other clauses to move the
* preposition tend to cause. However, this is my opinion, and I'd like to know
* how others feel about this.

* (BTW - I know this is a lousy example - I've already reworded it to "The
* system begins numbering orders at this number," but you get the drift of my
* question.)

* Barb Philbrick


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