07 December 2009

Terminal Prepositions

"For a dogmatic Prescriptivist, "Where's it at?" is double-damned as a sentence that not only ends with a preposition but whose final preposition forms a redundancy with where that's similar to the redundancy in "the reason is because" (which latter usage I'll admit makes me dig my nails into my palms). Rejoinder: First off, the avoid-terminal-prepositions rule is the invention of one Fr. R. Lowth, an eighteenth-century British preacher and indurate pedant who did things like spend scores of pages arguing for hath over the trendy and degenerate has. The a.-t.-p. rule is antiquated and stupid and only the most ayatolloid SNOOT takes it seriously..."

From a 2001 essay in Harper's Magazine by David Foster Wallace.

5 comments:

  1. Ugh. A HUGE pet peeve of mine as well.

    Although, I have stopped correcting people. Once upon a time, my brother said to me, "Hey, where are you going to be at?" I corrected him by saying, "You know, you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition." Without missing a beat he replied, "Okay. Where are you going to be at, asshole?"

    There endeth my grammar lesson for that day.

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  2. Regarding correcting other people's errors, you might enjoy going to the essay itself and reading the section about SNOOTs.

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  3. What an article!

    I am, I think, finally convinced of the efficacy of technology when it can make D.F.W.'s footnotes this easy to read.

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  4. Even greater than my hatred of "the reason is because..." is my hatred of "the reason being is that...."

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