GratuitousRex

Whew, I’m not uneducated after all… just casual

English wasn’t my best subject. Let’s just get that out in the open. I was always more of a math and science guy.

For the longest time, I thought it was technically wrong to end a sentence on a preposition ie to, for, on, about, over, under, around, through.

Don’t judge ; )

I thought the actual correct way was to move it to the front of the sentence, and that anyone who ended a sentence with a preposition (everyone) was technically wrong but it was acceptable, like:
How long is he there for?———————>
For how long is he there?

Which place are you going to?————>
To which place are you going?

Well, thank God for the Internet.  A quick searchy search taught me that ending sentences with prepositions is just fine. I must have missed that day in Junior High.

And doing it the other way, though acceptable, is actually considered Overly Formal.  See?
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/11/grammar-myths-prepositions/

And no joke, I was in the middle of a concerted effort to speak the overly formal way, thinking it was the only correct way.

But me? I prefer being casual ; )

In this site, it has a prepositional joke courtesy of reddit.com:
A snobbish English teacher was sitting in an Atlanta airport coffee shop waiting for her flight back to Connecticut, when a friendly Southern gal sat down next to her.

‘Where y’all goin’ to?’ asked the Southern gal.

Turning her nose in the air, the snob replied ‘I don’t answer people who end their sentences with prepositions’.

The Southern gal thought a moment, and tried again. ‘Where y’all goin’ to, bitch?’

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31 comments

  4. That would be funny except a true southern belle would have said “Where ya’ll headin’?” oh and Southern belles never curse. Southern women do, redneck women do, but a Southern belle will never, ever curse in public. It simply “isn’t done”. We have to get very creative to pull off a proper insult come back in a genteel way, so in general, we just let the insults slide.

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  5. Grammar rules have changed tremendously in the last 15-20 yrs. i feel like I was school the old fashioned way and now i’m so lost! Quotations, ellipses, hyphens, salutations, commas… you name it. I can’t keep track.

    It’s like when the official spanish language dropped the double r and l

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  7. Sorry for the double (now triple) comment. It sent withiut me finishing what i was typing! 😠

    So, back to what i was saying… I was so confused when the spanish alphabet was reduced! I was like, where’d the rr and ll and ch go??? How rude! 😉

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