Ending with a Preposition
Ending with a Preposition
Eat My Prepositions, Bitch
You’ve been lied to. Swindled. Gaslit by the ghost of your high-school English teacher who still stalks the corridors of your subconscious with a red pen in hand and rage in her heart. You’ve been told that ending a sentence with a preposition is a sin. An offence. A crime punishable by long, painful stares from smug grammar trolls.
Well, grab a wine, sit down, and let me tell you something earth-shattering: ending a sentence with a preposition is not only acceptable, it’s glorious.
What the Hell Is a Preposition Anyway?
If you’re the type who slept through English class or were too busy flirting with someone two desks over, here’s the refresher: a preposition is a word that shows the relationship between other words. (Yeah, sexy stuff.) Words like on, in, at, to, by, for, from, with, about, and so on.
Now, your dusty old grammar books… and by extension, those who fetishize them. Will say you should never, ever end a sentence with one. Why? Because Latin said so. And if there’s one thing the English language should definitely obey, it’s… a dead language used by toga-clad philosophers who didn’t even have sentence-ending prepositions. Makes perfect sense, right?
Why This Rule Can Go Sit on a Tacitus Scroll
Here’s the truth: English isn’t Latin. It evolved and it got messy. It started wearing ripped jeans and listening to sad indie playlists while texting six people at once. We speak in preposition endings all the time.
- “Where are you at?”
- “That’s what I’m here for.”
- “What did you step on?”
- “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Try rewriting those into “proper” grammar and you sound like someone who licks envelopes for fun.
- “At what place are you?”
- “That is the thing for which I am here.”
- “Upon what did you step?”
- “I know not of what you speak.”
No one talks like that. If they do, they probably haven’t had sex in a decade.
Modern English Said Chill the Hell Out
Let’s drag in the Oxford Dictionary, because some of you still need “legit sources” to give yourselves permission to live. Even they say this rule is outdated. Most grammarians now agree that avoiding a terminal preposition is a holdover from another era, like powdered wigs or dial-up internet.
Besides, in fiction and blog writing—my domain of sarcastic chaos—we write how people talk. We don’t craft elegant Victorian sonnets when the goal is to sound like a real human being who maybe says “fuck” more than they should.
When Ending With a Preposition Is Actually Perfect
- “That’s the guy I told you about.”
- “This is what we’ve been working toward.”
- “She’s someone I can’t stop thinking about.”
Could you rewrite these to follow the rule? Sure. Will you sound like a human thesaurus with constipation? Absolutely.
Want to Annoy Grammar Snobs? Do It More.
One of the most satisfying things I’ve done recently—aside from watching a pigeon steal someone’s gelato in Florence—is to intentionally end every third sentence with a preposition. Why? Because it drives the smug grammar police absolutely mental, and I live for that energy.
I even fantasise about writing a book called What I’m On About. Chapter One: The Rule I Just Broke.
Some More Sentences to Make Grammar Traditionalists Cry:
- “She had no one to talk to.”
- “This is the hill I’ll die on.”
- “He’s not someone I’d mess with.”
If that last one offended you, I’ll let you sit with it.
To Wrap Up
You’re not writing a contract for the Royal Navy, nor are you sending dispatches from the front line of a spelling bee. You’re writing stories, blogs, tweets, maybe even the occasional emotionally traumatic email to your narcissistic ex. Write how people talk.
Language evolves. You’re allowed to evolve with it.
So next time you catch yourself hesitating to end a sentence with a preposition, just remember: your high-school English teacher isn’t watching, and even if she were, she’d probably hate the internet.
Go on. End with a preposition. Be wild and free. Be the chaos you want to see in the Oxford English Dictionary.
And if you liked this breakdown of literary rule-breaking, you’ll probably love:
None of those exist. Yet. But they probably should. I made them up purely to annoy the grammar police and anyone clutching a copy of The Elements of Style like it’s a Bible.
“This man is a linguistic disgrace the likes of which I’ve never read before.”
—Lady Victoria Longwind, Chairperson of the Oxford Pedants Society
“Sentences shouldn’t end like this. Or like that. Or like the other one I just threw a red pen at.”
—Professor Horace T. Wigglebottom, Retired and Bitter
But hey, if you’re done with syntactical sacrilege and want something meatier, darker, and a hell of a lot more intense… check out my newer work. Especially Good Luck Getting Rid of Me. It’s not cute. It’s chaos in hardcover.
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