by Jennie Ruby
“This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.” Sooner or later every grammarian ends up either hearing about or citing this sentence, credited to Sir Winston Churchill. Here is my tip-o’-the-hat to it. Along with other rules that English teachers make up as short-cuts to getting their students to create good English sentences, the rule stating that thou shalt not end a sentence with a preposition, which Churchill was protesting with his convoluted sentence, is a little bit flawed.
The flaw is that this rule cannot universally be applied. It is perfectly true that you should not use a gratuitous preposition at the end of a sentence like this: Where is it at? The preposition at is redundant and should be omitted. Without it, the sentence still makes perfect sense: “Where is it?”
However, many colloquial expressions require the preposition, and without it the meaning is lost. Here are some examples where you cannot omit the preposition:
- The design was incomplete, so we had to flesh it out. (Out is a preposition and is at the end of a sentence, but without it, the verb flesh makes no sense.)
- The printout fell on the floor, so I had to pick it up. (Up is a preposition, but without it, pick makes no sense.)
- The error was so shocking that I had to cry out. (Out, again, cannot be omitted.)
To flesh something out, to pick something up, and to cry out are verb-preposition combos that have unique meanings. Without their prepositions, these verbs have meanings that the reader cannot make out. In these cases, a correctly chosen preposition is a perfectly fine word with which to end a sentence.
About the Author: Jennie Ruby is a veteran IconLogic trainer and author with titles such as “Essentials of Access 2000” and “Editing with MS Word 2003 and Adobe Acrobat 7” to her credit. Jennie specializes in electronic editing. At the American Psychological Association, she was manager of electronic publishing and manager of technical editing and journal production. Jennie has an M.A. from George Washington University and is a Certified Technical Trainer (Chauncey Group). She is a publishing professional with 20 years of experience in writing, editing and desktop publishing.
Want help with a grammar issue? Email us your troubles and we’ll turn Jennie loose!