Yes You Can End a Sentence with a Preposition
I left a comment a while back on a forum where I used the following phrase to describe a troll, "Is there anything he won't stoop to?” Almost immediately someone retorted, "Bernie, I think you meant to say 'Is there anything to which he won’t stoop?'”
I'm sure all of us have heard the rule: Don't end a sentence with a preposition. I have to say, in general, for most good writers, the rule against it was long since repealed, according to the Columbia Journalism Review.
Actually, there is no rule in English grammar that forbids the construction, only an admonition to avoid it if one can. The rule against it is actually a rule in Latin Grammar regarding the ablative case.
However when using English you may end in a preposition if the sentence isn't overly long and if it sounds natural. Listen to how it sounds when you say it aloud in both constructions. If putting the preposition in the middle seems contorted or unnatural then absolutely end the sentence with a preposition.
One can of course say, "That is the house in which I live" instead of "That's the house I live in", but not without sounding like a sanctimonious prig.
When Winston Churchill was criticized for ending a sentence in a preposition, he responded, "That is the kind of thing up with which I will not put." Of course, he was ridiculing the nonexistent "rule."
English syntax allows and sometimes even requires the final placement of the preposition. For example, if I needed you to solve some problems I would ask, "So what did you come up with?" If instead, I followed the silly Latin rule [it's not silly in Latin, of course], and asked you, "Up with what did you come?" you would wonder what country I was from. Oops - I did it again.
If any of my readers can find a modern authoritative source that says the rule actually exists in English Grammar and must be followed to the letter, that would certainly be something I would be interested in.
I say modern source, because according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd edition: "The doctrine that a preposition may not be used to end a sentence was first promulgated by Dryden, probably on the basis of a specious analogy to Latin, and was subsequently refined by the 18th-century grammarians."
However before then, all the famous writers of English literature, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton preferred to end their sentences with prepositions. So except for a very short period where someone tried to insert a Latin syntactical structure upon our language, this suggestion was never a basic tenet of our grammar.
The rule would only apply if English were a Latinate language instead of a Germanic one. Those familiar with Germanic languages know that sentences routinely end in prepositions - it's nothing to be ashamed of.
