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A comment on How language gives your brain a break. Parent comment

Re:How language gives your brain a break by almightysmudge on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @12:32PM (#10004457)
Wouldn't there be a comma if he was sitting in the kitchen? Isn't there an old adage as well, "don't end a sentence with a preposition"?

edit: Apparently that's an old wives tale, the preposition one.

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Re:How language gives your brain a break by jessaustin on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @01:04PM (#10004688)
That's the kind of grammar prescription up with which we will not put.
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Re:How language gives your brain a break by igravious on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @02:40PM (#10005344)
While I agree that the rule "Thou shall not end a sentence with a preposition." seems to be a borrowed Latinate prescription and is at variance with modern English usage, inhale, deep breath, I think your example of using the phrasal verb (put up with), though common, to demonstrate your point is not a good example. :)

If we consider put-up-with as a verb that just so happens to be a compound verb-postposition-postposition _unit_ then the sentence "That's the kind of grammar prescription which we will not put up with" actually ends in a verb. If you see what I mean. Does this make sense? I'm just punting this intuitively.

I'm trying to think of an actual case where a bare adpositional word terminates a sentence... which is not in question form... and I can only think poetic uses... and after having Googled a bit... verb+prep or phrasal verb or question are the only examples I've _come across_. :)

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Re:How language gives your brain a break by jessaustin on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @03:06PM (#10005523) 

  s/which/that/
Sorry, but that drives me crazy. I think your "verb+prep" gives the game away, as that is very common idiom. What about this: "That's the store we got the candy from." Perhaps a sentence using "where" would be more stylish, but you can't very well throw out a prescription of grammar just to immediately replace it with one of style.
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Re:How language gives your brain a break by igravious on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @03:39PM (#10005725)
Do you mean where I said, "which is not in question form..." I should've said, "that is not in question form..." My inner ear is not ringing any alarm bells there. Care to explain?

I like your example. Never mind about style. I can riff on that: "There's the table we put the apple on.", "Here's the bag I keep my laptop in." And so on. Nice!

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Re:How language gives your brain a break by jessaustin on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @05:02PM (#10006267)
I would have sworn that your "verb that just so happens" was once something like "verb which just so happens". Hmmm.
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Re:How language gives your brain a break by beagle3 on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @01:02PM (#10004665)
The adage I'm familiar with is "A preposition is something you shouldn't end a sentence with". It goes hand in hand with "If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is".
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Re:How language gives your brain a break by networked on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @01:01PM (#10004656)
In case you were wondering about the origins of this idea: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004454.h....
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