Hacker News Reader

You should never end a sentence with a preposition.

The mathematician Paul Halmos loved issues like these and once constructed a sentence that ends in five prepositions: "What did you want to bring that book that I didn't want to be read to out of up for?"

This is the kind of thing up with which I will not put.

In my mind this "sentence" validates the need for the rule. :-)

Ah, but can you rephrase it using the rule to make it better?

"For what did you bring up that book from out of which I did not want to be read?"

Not a huge improvement.

I'd say it's an improvement; unlike the original, I am able to parse your version.

It's a shitty and awkward sentence to begin with (with which to begin), primarily because it unnecessarily uses the passive voice to entangle two ideas that are clearer when approached one at a time in the active voice:

I didn't want anyone to read out of that book to me. Why did you want to bring it up?

See? Contrary to what is suggested above, the whole thing is MUCH better with the active voice. Note that in the case of "bring up," "up" is an adverb, not a preposition, so I am not ending the second sentence with a preposition.

Why did you bring me this book? I don't want to read it.

Speak normally and you don't have an issue. :-)

Simpler, but with a changed meaning. The original speaker does not want to be read to from the book; he does not contemplate reading it to himself.

"I do not want to be read to from that book, why did you bring it?"

There is always a better rewrite.

Every language has ways of "legally" abusing it. Individual examples of which do not invalidate the language as a whole.

See also http://www.ioccc.org/ .

  I lately lost a preposition
  It hid, I thought, beneath my chair
  And angrily I cried, "Perdition!
  Up from out of in under there."

  Correctness is my vade mecum,
  And straggling phrases I abhor,
  And yet I wondered, "What should he come
  Up from out of in under for?"

-Morris Bishop in the New Yorker, 27th September, 1947

I'm trying to parse this but it still doesn't make perfect sense

  What
   did you want to bring that book
    that I didn't want
     to be
      read
      to
     out
    of
   up
  for

Its got some idiom in it as well. Try:

What did you want to bring that book (that I didn't want to be read to out of) up for?

  What
    did you want to bring that
      book that I didn't want to be read 
        to
      out of
    up
  for?

It's also a chiasm!

Adherence to arbitrary grammar rules is a signal. It shows that the writer has training in what the rules are, and the ability to follow them. To some readers, this can be a signal of credibility. I don't care if the rules make sense; I care if someone will think less of my writing if I break the rules.

When I am reading, I first look for signs that the author has been trained to know the rules. Later, I look for him or her to break them.

There's something about knowing that you are breaking a rule that makes it feel more legitimate to me. You are using your license instead of your ignorance. I enjoy seeing that in what I am reading.

Edit: I wrote this in part to encourage you to relax your style and care a little less. Tell me what you think :)

I recently finished Bill Simmons The Book of Basketball. He frequently breaks a grammatical rule, then includes a footnote saying something like "Yes, that really did deserve a double negative."

People often reply something along these lines. I don't entirely disagree, but I have some big reservations. First, which rules? That is, does it still bother you if a writer uses 'will' where some very stuffy people would prefer (even insist on!) 'shall'? If not, why not? If so, why? Notice that no matter which way you jump on this, you're already making choices. What about 'nauseous' and 'nauseated'? Do you insist on that distinction in writing? How about in speech? Do you correct people who say 'can' instead of 'may'? How about 'less' and 'few'? Do you say 'your being here makes me happy' or 'you being here makes me happy'? There's always going to be room for some pedantic asshat to correct you. It's up to you, however, to pick the cases where you push back, or shrug, or accept the correction quietly (because you've had the fight too often). You also have to decide who you want to impress. If you carefully rearrange all sentences so that they don't end with a preposition, you may impress the grammar school teachers and the self-satisfied pedants of the world, but you will only look silly to the professors of Linguistics over at Language Log[1].

So it's not entirely good enough to say "Just follow the arbitrary rules in order to demonstrate that you are a thoughtful, well-educated, intelligent person." It's always a case of pick your rules and your battles.

I do have to choose among rules. The choices that I make are also a signal. I am an American, and I work in a profession where writing is important. I try to make style and grammar choices that match those of well-thought-of American writers in my profession. I do try to avoid choices that might make some people think I don't know the "correct" definitions of words (nauseous vs. nauseated, for example). I don't care as much about "will" and "shall," because American writers I respect mostly use "will," unless they are writing statutes or contracts. Also, I try never to correct other people; I am not much of a prescriptivist.

You have a [1] but forgot to include the footnote.

Sorry about that. It's linked later in this thread, but still, here it is.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/

This is similar to "geeks do not respect suits". Suits are meant to signal credibility. But since geeks value ability much higher than style, the suit, being worn by "less intelligent" salespeople and managers, became a negative signal.

Similarly, perhaps online the use of American punctuation is becoming a negative signal, showing pedantic training as a "professional writer" rather than a true ability to convey ideas.

Agreed. It's largely a class marker, and class registers as credibility, depending on the subject matter.

It can also be a powerful signal of an unoriginal thinker, forever destined to do what they're told and to simply be a replaceable cog in a machine.

If you are looking for a technical writer, accountant, copy machine operator, security manager, etc. a rule follower is okay. These people don't ask questions, don't go against the grain and can be relied upon to simply produce output in a well structured process at a uniform consistency. In effect they are trained to produce fast food. This can be highly desirable in many cases -- but it shouldn't be lauded.

If you are looking for a novel thinker, a rule follower is the last place you want to go. You'd want them to know the rules, and be familiar with them, but not be chained to them/use them as a crutch or excuse. However, like most creative endeavors, if can be hard to get consistent, regular output. They aren't unaware of the rules, they simply ignore them. They aren't better than a person that can assemble words into sentences with the regularity of a automated assembly line, but they are definitely different.

Where it gets confusing is knowing the difference between somebody who purposely ignores the rules to achieve a desired output vs. somebody who is completely ignorant of the rules. I've personally found that people who are strict rule followers have the hardest time with this distinction.

Understood, but what about this: Before reading this article I didn't know about these rules. In Germany, we seem to follow the "british way". Couldn't resist..

So this argument seems only to hold if you a) assume that your readers are from the USA (or NA in general, no idea about Canada?) so that they value this style and b) that they don't just stumble upon your texts: They need to know where you're from.

This is necessary because it seems that a British person could easily claim that you're incompetent because you follow the exact rule we're talking about, but it doesn't apply locally for him. Okay, that's a bad example. AE and BE in writing is probably different enough so that someone speaking/writing BE will just chalk this up as another difference.

But here comes the rest of the world. We know about fall/autumn, colo[u]r and whatnot, but I'd say that it's not generally easy to say where some english text originates from, geographically/where the author lives. So if I cannot distinguish AE and BE with certainty, do I blame you or a BE person for handling this "wrong"?

Knowledgable readers who care will likely know both standards; at that point it's a matter of consistency (or, at the very least, never do something that breaks both sets of rules).

I'd say that in this case I'd give more credibility to someone who follows logical punctuation, as long as they followed it consistently. I prefer it both logically and aesthetically, and, perhaps because of this bias, would wonder if someone following the "periods and commas inside the quotes" rule is just mindlessly following a rule.

Language evolves over time, and in my opinion logical punctuation has become common enough to be a credible choice. Most people these days take the "do not end sentences with a preposition" rule with a grain of salt, and I think that the MLA method of quoting is headed in a similar direction.

As the legend goes, the "never end a sentence with a preposition" rule was actually a revisionist prescription at some point in the (relatively recent) past. The goal was to make English more "elegant" and Latinate in its usage. This prescription actually flies in the face of English's origins. English did not derive from Latin, even though it borrows a lot of words and phrases from Latin. The rules of English grammar do not follow those of Latin, nor should they.

Modern English is a hodgepodge of a variety of languages. The history of the language is really quite interesting, and I suggest anyone look into it if they have interest. If you try to read pre-Norman English today, you'd be hopelessly lost (unless you were previously trained to do so). Take a look at the original text of Beowulf and compare it to, say, the Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales is a rough read; Beowulf is unintelligible.

True, although the rules of grammar and construction have not changed as dramatically as the vocabulary, spellings, or pronunciations have. Gramatically and syntactically speaking, English is still quite Germanic. That's why it is (supposedly) easy for a native English speaker to learn Dutch or German; their conjugations and sentence structures are more intuitive to us than those of the Romance languages.

+ You should never end a sentence with a preposition. (Sheer bullshit: English uses countless phrasal verbs ('throw away') and in many other cases avoiding the final preposition produces stuffy nonsense.)

This is an ineffective counterexample. "Away" is an adverb, not a preposition.

Hah: I'm a dope. I originally wrote 'throw up' and changed it because I thought people would object that it was informal. I picked 'throw away' pretty much at random, starting with 'throw', and I didn't even stop to analyze 'away'.

I can no longer edit the original, but thanks for the correction.

A better example might be, "Do you want to come with?"

Which is extremely informal, as the pronoum "me" or "us" is omitted from the end, but the context of usage would imply its presence.

But easily revised to "Do you want to come with us?"

Not that I particularly think the rules are inviolable. I see them as guidelines: if you're using the passive voice then make sure that it won't be better in active. If you're ending with a preposition, then perhaps there's a clearer way to phrase it.

(If you feel a bit like the author of this comment you might enjoy the Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/)

With the exception of the third point, I actually like all of these rules, kind of. However, I don't really like them as rules, per se, so much as guidelines. The thing of it is, if a sentence has been ended with a preposition, more often than not it can be rewritten in a clearer manner. Similarly, while passive voice is useful, to abundantly use it tends to make your writing dull and unclear. Similarly, split infinitives often obfuscate meaning, and sentences beginning with "but", "or", and", or "however" tend to be better served combined with the preceding sentence. Thus, as a general rule, I prefer for amateur writers to follow these guidelines as rules.

That being said, once you know how to write well enough and you understand when these guidelines make your writing better and when they make it worse, for the love of $deity, please break them all over the place.

"Where's the library at?"

"You should never end a sentence with a preposition."

"Where's the library at, jerk?"

Well, everyone has their own standard. Rules falling within that standard are important for clarity, and rules outside that standard are needless and fussy. However...

You should never end a sentence with a preposition.

I like to follow this one, but only as a hobby, and not in casual conversation unless I'm talking to another pedant. I do admit that the syntactical knots into which I sometimes need to tie myself in order to avoid the preposition at the end make the sentence harder rather than easier to parse. On the other hand, sometimes prepositions at the end can make sentences harder to understand, in instances where the sentence seems to have a different meaning until you get to the preposition at the end. (I can't think of any examples right now.)

You should never split an infinitive

Agreed, that's just plain random.

Never use the passive voice

I have never heard this from anyone except Microsoft Word Grammar Check.

Don't start sentences with 'but' or 'and' or 'however'.

Now now, here I'm really going to have to disagree with you. "However" is reasonable, but "and" and "but" really belong in the middle of the sentence, not at the beginning. There are exceptional circumstances under which you can break this rule, but they're few and far between.

I have to admit I use But, in particular, at the beginning of sentences fairly frequently. I usually follow the shorter is better rule when it comes to sentences and try to avoid long sentences that have semicolons and other non-period bridges.(Not always, but most of the time.) I find it tends to make writing snappier and easier to read.

> Never use the passive voice > > I have never heard this from anyone except Microsoft Word Grammar Check.

"Never" is definitely over-stated, but avoiding passive voice does tend to make writing more concise, clear, and engaging. Using passive voice habitually is probably just careless.

Using the passive voice is not recommended by me. A book was read by me that contained the rule against it: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Also a passage in Stephen King's On Writing that makes the same point was read by me a bit later in my life.

In short, I do not recommend the passive voice. The Elements of Style has a rule against it, and I read the same point later in life in a passage from Stephen King's On Writing.

But you don't have to believe them. You can figure out why they recommend it for yourself.

Julia Lennon bore John Lennon in 1940 and Mark David Chapman murdered him in 1980.

John Lennon was born in 1940 and murdered in 1980.

The passive voice is recommended in some situations.

John Lennon: 1940-1980 Mother: Julia Killer: Mark David Chapman

J/k

Point taken.

A critical thinker would try to find a sentence that sounds best in the active voice, then try to find one that works best in the passive voice. Succeeding both times, he would then conclude that both are useful.

Specifically, the passive voice allows you to mention the action while omitting the actor. This is sometimes useful, other times harmful.

A mean spirited person would manage to slip a dig at someone's critical thinking skills into an otherwise well-taken comment. Not that this paragraph implies anything about the comment I'm replying to.

(Seriously, wtf)

Using passive voice is also a characteristic error of young bad writers. I would not presume to tell an old good writer how to do their job.

And incidentally, it doesn't take the awesome might of my critical thinking army, arrayed like the crusaders going to war, pennons snapping in the wind, to point out that there are better reasons to avoid the passive voice than 'MS Grammar Check says so'.

Never use the passive voice

I have never heard this from anyone except Microsoft Word Grammar Check.

An English teacher told my class that it's often used to lie. I think she was right. Maybe it'd be better to say that it is often used to mask the truth (hey, we were fourteen or fifteen, and subtlety wasn't exactly one of our strengths). Consider the difference between "mistakes were made" and "I screwed up."

(On the other hand, also consider the difference between "I screwed up" and "we screwed up." You can still play fast and loose with the truth using the active voice.)

I think it's fair to say that overuse of the passive voice is often associated with strained credibility, so you'd often be better off avoiding it, or at least using it sparingly. Of course, sometimes it reads more smoothly, and in those cases you should use it.

However, if you're writing fiction, passive voice is your friend. My high school teachers never realized this despite handing out creative fiction assignments.

Passive voice is for lab reports, research papers, similar scientific/engineering documentation, although I also see a lot of "we" used in papers, especially CS papers.

The use of active voice in scientific papers is an increasing trend. In the old days it was thought more scientifically appropriate to merely state that things were done without personalizing it, but gradually folks came to realise that scientific papers are hard enough to read already and that page after page of passive voice just makes it harder.

I tend to use a blend.

Well, I certainly agree that it's typically harder to write a long document in the passive voice. Describing what I did accurately and clearly is a big enough challenge without also having to contort everything into the passive voice.

The arbitrariness of grammar rules you mention is nothing compared with the standardization of spelling. I see a connexion between the motivations behind both - pedantry.

In both cases, standardization of spelling and grammar, they have the role of streamlining communication. Try reading posts that have non-standardized spelling. If the spelling is phonetic based, you have to pause and think how the word sounds. Awkward grammatical sentences are hard to parse.

There is a point to standardizing these things, though, past a certain point, it's a bit absurd and your point stands.

Regarding phonetic spelling, non-phonetic spelling such as is found in English is unusual - the idea of a French or German spelling bee is incoherent. Even though a book such as Le Morte d'Arthur is unfamiliar at first, the spelling differences disappear pretty quickly once an English speaker's attention is focused on it.

Rules are useful limitations until you fully understand the subject, then you can break them.

By following your "myths" you will avoid writing bad English, when you know what you are doing you can selectively break them for a desired effect.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

A preposition is a word you should never end a sentence with.

Where has anyone ever said that a sentence cannot be started with "however," which is an adverb?