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Re: Ending a sentence with a preposition (#911875)
Subject:Re: Ending a sentence with a preposition (#911875) From:Bill Burns <wburns -at- MICRON -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 18 Sep 1996 10:38:49 MDT
18-SEP-1996 10:22:04.47
Steve writes:
>I've been told that in Latin it's impossible to end a sentence with a
>preposition, and that the no preposition rule came from Latin. Of
>course, this could be an old grammarian's tale.
Oh. Didn't read the last bit. This could be the case (since prepositions
are *pre*positional), but this history is definitely true with split
infinitives. In Latin, infinitives are single words. In English, what
passes for an infinitive (to <insert verb stem>) consists of two or more
words, and adding adverbs in between *to* and the verb stem and its
particles is an old convention (far older than the imposition of Latin
grammar on writing convention--which has only been happening for the last
200 years or so, if memory serves me correctly).
Bill Burns
Assembly Documentation Supervisor
wburns -at- micron -dot- com
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