At least it’s not a hanging chad November 8, 2008
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Democracy, Grammar Attack, Obama!, Spellcheck, Wisdom.Tags: Change We Can Believe In, Dangling preoposition, Design for Obama, McCan't/Failin', President-Elect Barack Obama, Salon
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…The dangling preposition has just started to bother me. I’m preeeetty certain that all this time it should have been “Change In Which We Can Believe”.
…But I also think we should all just let it slide, because I’m NOT going to share the same grammatical bandwagon as McCan’t/Failin’ supporters.
ALSO, re: This letter on Salon
@ Blueflash
Damn snappy, dawg.
PS. I am not saying Obama is stupid. Obviously “Change in which we can believe” would just add to his uppity-elitist-arugula-eating image in a way that would not benefit his campaign.
I’m just saying that his platform is not exceptionally complex and his campaign style has not been particularly intellectual.— Rosenkavalier, 11 August 2008
(my emphasis)
I hope this is sarcasm, or if not, that the humble pie is good at this time of year.
First published at tumblr Proof (v.)
The prescription against stranding prepositions seems to have been invented by Dryden. But preposition stranding is grammatical English has been used by English writers for centuries.
http://158.130.17.5/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000743.html
There are some sentences where we have to strand the preposition, for instance “what are you talking about?”
Definitely. And also some situations where to do otherwise would make you sound like a pretentious tool. I’m sure that among friends, it is perfectly acceptable — nay, obligatory — to leave a few prepositions dangling…