Interesting that he fronts the preposition in “countries from which they came” (rather than: “countries which they came from”). I wonder where he learned that.
iknklast
GW, I’m impressed that he didn’t say ‘the countries from which they came from’ – the sort of thing I hear way too often for my pedantic peace of mind.
Personally I hold that “rule” about where to put the preposition in deep contempt, because it results in hideous pedantic sentences that only a robot could like. Which is better: What did you do that for? or For what did you do that? Idiomatic sometimes trumps “correct.” With the preposition rule, it’s most of the time.
Colin Day
@OB #4
As one Nobel laureate (Churchill) put it,
When Winston Churchill was chastised for ending a sentence with a preposition, he wittily responded. “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” Churchill’s retort illustrates that attempts to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition can be labored and ludicrous.
Like many so-called “rules” of English, it all comes from trying to impose Latin patterns on a Germanic language*. Germanic languages have these things that behave somewhat like (and are often cognate with) Latin prepositions, and since the pre- in preposition means “before”, surely it follows that those things ought to come before the noun. Except in Germanic languages those things are often verbal particles, and can either optionally or obligatorily come at the end of the phrase.
*See also “split infinitives”: in Latin infinitives can’t be split because they’re marked by a verbal morpheme; in English, the verb is in its bare form; “to” is a separate word.
Acolyte of Sagan
I’d really like to know what Trump classifies as ‘illegal’ when it comes to protests given that one of the first acts of his second term was a blanket pardon for everybody involved in the Jan 6th. protest in D.C..
Comments
7 responses to “NER MERSKS”
Interesting that he fronts the preposition in “countries from which they came” (rather than: “countries which they came from”). I wonder where he learned that.
GW, I’m impressed that he didn’t say ‘the countries from which they came from’ – the sort of thing I hear way too often for my pedantic peace of mind.
Yes, iknklast, I also hear that way too often.
Personally I hold that “rule” about where to put the preposition in deep contempt, because it results in hideous pedantic sentences that only a robot could like. Which is better: What did you do that for? or For what did you do that? Idiomatic sometimes trumps “correct.” With the preposition rule, it’s most of the time.
@OB #4
As one Nobel laureate (Churchill) put it,
https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/wschiess/legalwriting/2007/07/prepositions-ending-with-understanding.html
Like many so-called “rules” of English, it all comes from trying to impose Latin patterns on a Germanic language*. Germanic languages have these things that behave somewhat like (and are often cognate with) Latin prepositions, and since the pre- in preposition means “before”, surely it follows that those things ought to come before the noun. Except in Germanic languages those things are often verbal particles, and can either optionally or obligatorily come at the end of the phrase.
*See also “split infinitives”: in Latin infinitives can’t be split because they’re marked by a verbal morpheme; in English, the verb is in its bare form; “to” is a separate word.
I’d really like to know what Trump classifies as ‘illegal’ when it comes to protests given that one of the first acts of his second term was a blanket pardon for everybody involved in the Jan 6th. protest in D.C..