And don't end a sentence with a preposition

Pedantry is not necessarily a bad thing. [1] For example, I am pedantic in my spelling, my research is meticulous, my planning is exemplary, and I never start a sentence with However, because, at the age of 11, my history teacher told us that writing history was about writing with style, with respect for the English language. There were few hard-and-fast rules, he said, but "however" should only be used as a marker that two things were being contrasted.

I recall thinking to myself "However you look at that, there are probably times when it's acceptable...", but I said nothing: it was probably the first time I showed a glimmering of wisdom. The second was when I adopted the rule — and I have stayed true to it.

Why? Easy: in most cases, sentences that begin with that word are clumsy and incompetent, so I have a personal rule that reflects John Rae's thundering ex cathedra statement. When I start beginning a sentence with the H word, that is a coded indication that I am suffering brain damage.

As a rule though, if you will forgive the expression, rules are made to be broken. Infinitives may be split asunder or prised apart with a crowbar, or participles may be dangled threateningly over yawning chasms in contravention of the Geneva Convention, and nobody will even blink. Still, there are two rules that you breach only if you have no fear.

The one rule which every dull and unaccomplished member of the lumpenscrivenariat knows is that a sentence must not end in a preposition when you are writing in English. Second-rate pedants and fourth-rate teachers have drummed this 'rule' into the thick-boned skulls of countless generations as an item of rote learning which has about the same validity as revolutionary slogans chanted by the masses.

Working writers know this 'rule' has no validity, but cowed by the bellows of the outrageous and outraged herd, they are likely to avoid ending a sentence in a preposition, if only to avoid the accusations emanating from the more bovine sort of reader. The true masters of the language have never had any problem with this rule, which was pilloried most delightfully by Winston Churchill, when he commented that ending a sentence with a preposition was something " . . . up with which we shall not put".

These days, it is worth our while to ask a simple question which could not have been answered in the past, but which is easy to tackle today, using machine-readable texts. That question: how do the experts of the past stack up? H. G. Fowler told us that just about every English writer of any merit ended sentences in prepositions, but how common was the practice? Was it an occasional lapse, or the regular thing, just as it is in everyday spoken English?

These days, with so many classic texts available in machine-readable form, finding the answer is easy. William Shakespeare's complete works reveal quite a few sentences ending in prepositions. The endings are 'over' (6), 'under' (2), 'up' (79), 'down' (77), 'to' (45), 'for' (45), 'by' (38), 'with' (21) and 'from' (2). All in all, Shakespeare did not seem to think it wrong or inglorious to end a sentence with a preposition.

The King James Bible, generally regarded as a foundation text of modern English, setting many of today's standards, is also available in electronic form. A pass of the global exchange mechanism in my computer reveals the following sentence endings: 9 overs, 1 under, 68 ups, 39 downs, while 'to' ends four sentences, while 'for' ends two sentences. There are 9 sentences ending in 'by', 2 ending in 'with' and 2 ending in 'from'.

Search where you will among the works of classical writers of English, the heroes of literature, and you will find them joyfully breaking the 'rule' that never was. Chaucer did it, Charles Darwin did it, so did John Bunyan and Jonathan Swift, and the Reverend Gilbert White, in his Natural History of Selborne. In fact, no author deemed worthy of electronic storage by Project Gutenberg seems to be entirely free of this wicked sin of ending a sentence in a preposition. As a law of careful writing, it seems only to be honoured in the breach.

And while we are at it, what about that second crime against good language, according to the lowest grade of pedant, the act of commencing a sentence with a conjunction (as I just did)? If that is a true law, then breaking it cannot be a grievous and heavy sin, for the translators of the Bible for King James start some 12,500 verses with "And . . .", and about 1400 of their verses begin with "But . . ."

But then again, maybe they did not know the fabled bishop who supposedly first ruled that sentences in the English language may not end in prepositions, or perhaps they knew that the bishop in question was not averse to starting sentences with a conjunction, that it was something he would readily put up with.

———

[1] Mind you, I once got into trouble for explaining, in a footnote in an official government publication that "a pedant is a footnote fetishist", a comment that brought guffaws from all but the pudgy-brained pedants it was aimed at.

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This blog covers quite a few different things, so I tag each post. I also blog about history, and I am currently writing a series of books called Not your usual... and the first two have been accepted by Five Mile Press, The offcuts appear here with the tag Not Your Usual... . For a taste of Australian tall tales, try the tags Speewah or Crooked Mick.   For a miscellany of oddities, try the tag temporary obsessions. And language us covered under the tags Descants and Curiosities, while stuff about small life is under Wee beasties.