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The Barbarians are at the gate... Posted by Scott Paterson [Email] (#13) [Profile/Gallery] (more from Scott Paterson) on Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:52:57 In Reply to: Is it wrong to end a sentence with a preposition?, Brownie, Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:13:33 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
I was once relating a story to one of my past college English professors (I had graduated about 4 years before) about how a colleague at work insisted on using a dangling particple in a piece of technical marketing material we were publishing. She insisted she was correct and had years of experience with the english language and on and on... Finally, my english professor said to me, "It seems the barbarians are at the gate." It dawned on me that, well, really, she was still communicating the concept correctly, so who cares if there was a dangling participle... It's not the end of the world and 100% of the people reading the phrase would understand it and only 1% might say, "Ah, that's a dangling participle, boy, am I smart!"...
That's also why I think online conversations should be considered casual conversations in terms of grammar. If you get your point across, it doesn't matter if you use technically proper grammer. Good for you if you do. At the very least, I'll notice and think you're a smart cookie.
As for ending a sentence with a preposition, there is an easy fix. Instead of saying something like;
"So, where is John at?"
You can easily mend this by saying,
"So, where is John at, snot-face!" <--- best I could think of, lard-arse!
-Scott
_______________________________________ Saabnet.com Webmaster Saabs Owned: 1973 Saab Sonett III (Current) 1983 Saab 900 Turbo 1985 Saab 900 Sedan 1990 Saab 900 1992 Saab 900S 1999 Saab 9-3 Turbo 2005 Saab 9-2X Aero (RIP 95K/Accident-guy ran stop sign) 2005 Saab 9-2X Aero (Current) 2007 Saab 9-3 SportCombi 2010 Saab 9-3X Wagon Winner 1996 Saab Owners Convention Rally Novice Class Winner 1999 Saab Owners Convention Rally (All Classes) Also Founder of two non-profits: Poverty2Prosperity.org RunClubMenloPark.org
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