Korean Job Discussion Forums

[themagicbean]

This thread began with a short exchange on another thread but rather than drag down that thread (where it was s side-debate) I'm giving it its own thread for indexing / searching purposes.

http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=171290&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=90 (pages 7 and

Summary:

I said "To those who know about what I am talking."

halfmanhalfbiscuit made fun of me

I said "It's correct grammar to not dangle the about."

halfmanhalfbiscuit said "pishposh," which proves he's quite cool, very few people can actually pull off a "pishposh," and I think he did.

But then jinks got involved, and said "it's style, not grammar."

To which I said: "PRE-posiiton means, by definition, "before" so it needs to be before."

And jinks said "Latin grammar abhors a dangled preposition but English grammar tolerates it," which frightens me because if he knows grammar of two languages I'm probably out of my league.

But he also gave examples that I would like to argue about, because I need more cold-weather hobbies: He avered that these proved prepositions can be dangled because the prepositions used cannot be sensibly moved into any other position in the sentence.

1. "The order came from above." Here I say "above" is short and kind of slangy for "above [the recipient of the order]." Typcially we eliminate the object of this preposition because it's obvious--"My orders came from above [me]." "His orders came from above [him]." Or, if blaming someone else, "Your orders came from above [me]." So it's not that the preposition can't be moved, it's that its (eliminated) object needs to be reintroduced into the sentence.

2. "The company is going under." Here, "under" is not used as an individual preposition, except maybe "under the line of insolvency"--quite a stretch of meaning. Better it would be to say "[be] go under" is a phrasal verb synonymous with "go bankrupt." So there can't be an object of the preposition because we're not using the word like a preposition, it's just part of a phrasal verb.

Wikipedia, last bastillion of sacred academia that it is, seems to agree with jinks that stranding a prep is okay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_stranding

Anybody have thoughts? ["You need a life" is not a debatable point so please do not comment on that or its equivalent.]

[edwardcatflap]

A kid's mum comes up the stairs to read him a bed time story and he asks her the question,

What did you bring that book, which you know I don't like being read to out of, up for?

5 dangled prepositions in one question, beat that!

[jinks]

Knowing a bit about Latin grammar is not the same as knowing Latin - I don't.

[some waygug-in]

I said "It's correct grammar to not dangle the about."



Was that an attempt at the ironic perhaps?

http://everything2.com/title/Dangling+preposition

The order came from above.

Hmmm, I'd say the preposition is "from" and the word "above" is functioning as a noun here.

above = the top

I'm sure someone will disagree though.

[seonsengnimble]

I'd say the rule is a remnant from older English. I'm talking out of my "hat" here, but it seems like in current modern English, there is no confusion or awkwardness caused by ending a sentence in a preposition. It also seems that in many cases, when the preposition used without two different nouns, it acts more like an adverb than a preposition.

For example: I am in the school./I go in.

In the first sentence, "in" expresses the physical relation between "I" and "school". In the second sentence, it seems to be modifying "go."

As long as you don't dangle your prepositions in public, you should be fine. [/b]

[Gnod]

English is always in a state of flux.

I believe that the rules of prepositions are in the process of changing. Much like the rules for "shall" and "may" are slowly falling to the wayside. Many of these rules are no longer applied to informal speaking or writing. As such, they seem overly formal or archaic to the casual listener or reader.

Much like the hard "k" at the beginning of "knight or knife" has been reduced to a silent place holder, or the fact that the spellings "color" and "colour" are both correct depending on where the writer is from.

[tardisrider]

The "rule" forbidding using a preposition to end a sentence is indeed a holdover from Latin.

Also, the rule is, or at least has been, invoked by frustrated teachers who want their students to stop using expressions like "Where are you going to?" or "Where's it at?" when "Where are you going?" or "Where is it?" work perfectly.

For more info, see "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker or virtually any other book that deals with such topics as modern English linguistics or the development of the English language.

Most style books will suggest not ending a sentence with superfluous prepositions such as in the example above, but expressions that require the preposition to avoid awkwardness are perfectly acceptable. An example might be "What is he talking about?" as opposed to the more stilted "About what is he talking?"

The rule is not in any way associated with questions even though my examples all just happen to be questions. Those are just the examples I thought of. (<---see?)

[The Goalie]

Is 'talk about' not a phrasal verb and therefore a complete semantic unit? If that's the case then it seems to me there's no dangling being done by leaving 'about' hanging about in that way.

[12ax7]

It's also not correct grammar not to dangle "up", and almost everyone gets the message when you tell them to "shut up".

[12ax7]

[sunnata1]

�This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.�

Attributed (probably incorrectly) to Winston Churchill.

[The Goalie]

[bassexpander]

Be careful. You can be arrested and deported for dangling your preposition in this country... in the classroom, anyway. It's perfectly OK to do that at the barbershop, however.

[LexusNexus]

[Old Gil]

19th C. British grammarians loved Latin b/c they were conservative and it was a dead language, so they started telling people not to dangle prepositions. It's bunk. English is a Germanic language and it's perfectly OK to put a prep at the end provided there is a prep. complement somewhere else in the sentence (usually the beginning). It does NOT work with phrasal verbs, and in any case those aren't prepositions their phrasal verb particles.

"Who are you speaking with" is fine, cuz one could say "With whom are you speaking?" (weird but correct).

"Please run the bill up" is also fine, the DO can come between a phrasal verb.

There are 'exceptions' that are confusing:

"Please piss a flagpole up" or "please run the stairs up" is NOT ok.

"up" in this case is an adverb that must be put with 'piss' or 'run' (notice how run up and run up can be different WOW) and not in fact a preposition or phrasal particle.

One must 'run up the stairs' and 'piss up a flagpole', doncha know. This is what Baas Arts told me.