Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Grammar sniping

A short note on the 'ending a sentence with a preposition = evil' rule. It seems to be accepted that this is not a grammatically meaningful rule, and here are two further destructions of it:
  1. Ben Jonson: "Prepositions sometimes follow the noun they are coupled with."
  2. Phrasal verbs are verbs that take the form of phrases -- to put up with, to look out for, etc.  So when you write "When hunting werewolves, large bloody pawprints and half-eaten carcasses are signs to look out for" you are actually ending a sentence with a verb, not a preposition.