Stranded prepositions

[WFU71]

Why are so many people ending sentences with "at" these days? Could a high school student get away with doing so in an English class?

 

[tsywake]

Where are they doing this at?

 

[inspectah]

It is absolutely something up with which I will not put.

 

[Biff Tannen]

 

[94Deac]

 

[dot com]

Not that big a deal, you should just go along with.

 

[bym051d]

The mid-90s spike in that graph coincides to when PhDeac took the SAT.

 

[PhDeac]

Actually, I was the early 90s dip.

 

[smallbigtall]

 

[TownieDeac]

There is a traditional view, as set forth by the 17th-century poet and dramatist John Dryden, that it is incorrect to put a preposition at the end of a sentence, as in where do you come from? or she’s not a writer I’ve ever come across. The rule was formulated on the basis that, since in Latin a preposition cannot come after the word it governs or is linked with, the same should be true of English. What this rule fails to take into account is that English is not like Latin in this respect, and in many cases (particularly in questions and with phrasal verbs) the attempt to move the preposition produces awkward, unnatural-sounding results.

-Oxford English Dictionary

 

[Dkin]

Not nearly as annoying as today's generation's overuse of "like"...

 

[Demonbeck]

Who are they doing this with?

 

[DeaconSlim2.0]

 

[TownieDeac]

Not nearly as annoying as today's generation's overuse of "like"...

People Who Say ‘Like’ All the Time Are Surprisingly Thoughtful

The researchers explain their findings, published recently in The Journal of Language and Social Psychology:

The possible explanation for this association is that conscientious people are generally more thoughtful and aware of themselves and their surroundings. When having conversations with listeners, conscientious people use discourse markers, such as ‘I mean’ and ‘you know,’ to imply their desire to share or rephrase opinions to recipients. Thus it is expected that the use of discourse markers may be used to measure the degree to which people have thoughts to express.

 

[WakeandBake]

Townie you don't have to defend every crack on your generation. Just take it man, its ok.

 

[WFUWaldo]

If anything, this graph shows me that SAT Reading scores fell 20 points in the ten years between 1970 and 1980, and then fell only 10 points between 1980 and 2014.

 

[noogadeac]

Not nearly as annoying as today's generation's overuse of "like"...

Starting every sentence with "so" is quickly becoming more annoying that the overuse of "like".

 

[WakeandBake]

If anything, this graph shows me that SAT Reading scores fell 20 points in the ten years between 1970 and 1980, and then fell only 10 points between 1980 and 2014.

 

[TownieDeac]

Townie you don't have to defend every crack on your generation. Just take it man, its ok.

#pussygeneration

The study also suggested gender is a stronger correlate than age.

I'm not being defensive, just addressing this stuff because it's about language, and that interests me.

 

[DeacinBama]

-Oxford English Dictionary

There are a lot of "rules" and foibles of modern English that came about this way. Basically, a handful of social elite in 16th and 17th century London decided one way was correct (the king's English, so to speak), often based off of Latin and - to a lesser extent - Greek. These rules survive today because their dialect and rules proliferated into modern standard English because 1) their social status provided their rules special consideration and 2) their form of writing was much likely to make its way into print than, oh let's say, the farmer from Kent.