Grammar Tips & Articles »

Ending a Sentence or Clause with a Preposition

This Grammar.com article is about Ending a Sentence or Clause with a Preposition — enjoy your reading!


1:59 min read
12,820 Views
  Ed Good  —  Grammar Tips
Font size:

Yet Another Myth

Here we have another myth, which I briefly mentioned in the section on prepositions:

Never end a sentence or clause with a preposition.

Actually, a sound rule would urge you to avoid ending sentences or clauses with prepositions in formal settings, as long as you don’t end up writing awkward sentences.

Following the rule, we would write:

These are the arguments on which the student relied.

But I know some excellent writers who would ignore the old rule and write:

These are the arguments the student relied on.

Sometimes you simply must end the sentence with a preposition:

What are you talking about?

Surely, not even a pedant would inquire:

About what are you talking?

Great writers have been ending sentences and clauses with prepositions for centuries. According to New Fowler:

Anyone who is in doubt about the frequency of occurrences over the centuries of prepositions placed at the end of clauses or sentences may wish to browse in the Oxford English Dictionary for about, by, for, from, etc. . . . New Fowler, p. 617.

New Fowler suggests that the formality of the setting should govern. In highly formal pieces, like a master’s thesis, you should try to avoid ending clauses with prepositions. But even in these formal settings, sentences sometimes demand a preposition at the end. In 1981, the London Review of Books wrote:

The conflict would be hard to live with.

Surely if this work includes such structures, your master’s thesis may, too. Thus, you need not write:

The conflict would be hard with which to live.

Sir Winston Churchill had his own opinion on the matter. In the words of his biographer:

A junior civil servant had tortuously reworded a sentence to avoid ending with a preposition. The prime minister scrawled across the page:

“This is nonsense up with which I will not put.” William Manchester, The Last Lion: Visions of Glory, vol. 1, p. 31 (1983).

But don’t overdo it. New Fowler, at p. 618, quotes a correspondent in 1923 showing how absurd sentences can become when they end with prepositions:

Child: I want to be read to.
Nurse: What book do you want to be read to out of?
Child: Robinson Crusoe.
Nurse returns with Swiss Family Robinson.
Child: What did you bring me that book to be read to out of for?

 

Previous: Objective Case of Pronouns

Next: Serving as Other Parts of Speech

Rate this article:

Have a discussion about this article with the community:

0 Comments

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this article to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "Ending a Sentence or Clause with a Preposition." Grammar.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 31 Oct. 2024. <https://www.grammar.com/ending-a-sentence-or-clause-with-a-preposition>.

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Chrome

    Check your text and writing for style, spelling and grammar problems everywhere on the web!

    Free, no signup required:

    Add to Firefox

    Check your text and writing for style, spelling and grammar problems everywhere on the web!

    Free Writing Tool:

    Instant
    Grammar Checker

    Improve your grammar, vocabulary, style, and writing — all for FREE!


    Quiz

    Are you a grammar master?

    »
    Identify the sentence with correct use of the past simple tense:
    A She visited Paris last summer.
    B I will be working late tonight.
    C They have been studying for hours.
    D We had finished the meal when they arrived.

    Improve your writing now:

    Download Grammar eBooks

    It’s now more important than ever to develop a powerful writing style. After all, most communication takes place in reports, emails, and instant messages.