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Subject:Re: a grand example From:David Ibbetson <ibbetson -at- IDIRECT -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 11 Jan 1996 08:20:40 -0500
>My favorite comes not from technical writing but from an old Mensa contest
>for the sentence ending in the greatest number of prepositions. I don't
>remember the whole thing, but it was something like:
>What did you bring the book I don't want to be read out of up for?
>Can anybody top that?
The version I learnt was "Why did you choose that book to be read to out of
from for?" It was supposed to have been said by a nurse to her charge.
Winston Churchill didn't get as many in when he objected to a convoluted
sentence, that had inelegantly avoided a final preposition: "This is the
sort of writing up with which I will not put."
