Preposition

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A preposition is a word, like with or to or of, with which one should not end of a sentence — if you’re speaking Latin. Since (if you’re smart) you’re not, you may put your preposition wherever you damn well please. Like the pendant’s aversion to split infinitives, this is a bogus grammatical rule to boldly be dismissive of.

Prepositions do the important but prosaic job of putting nouns and pronouns in relation to each other — “the cat sat on the mat” — so you have your work cut out if you want to put one at the end a sentence. But, by all means, try to.

Whether or not they end sentences with them, lawyers can still have plenty of fun with prepositions. The easiest upgrade is to substitute normal prepositions with cumbersome compound prepositions cobbled out of nouns, conjunctions and other flotsam and jetsam of the English language.

It is also a way of catching out a humble-bragger and, at the same time, shaming him as a preposition pedant using the handy cut-out-and-keep guide below.

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How to deal with a preposition pedant

From an etiquette perspective, there is only one way of dealing with a preposition pedant, and it is as set out in the following dramatisation:

SCENE: Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. An INNOCENT tourist, whom we expect hails from the Mid-West, accosts a local rambler. Little beknown to him, the rambler is a PEDANT.

Innocent: Say: where’s this Robin Hood at?

Pedant: You know, you really shouldn’t put a preposition at the end of a sentence.

Innocent: All right, then. (clears throat) Say: where’s this Robin Hood at, asshole?