Words to Live By, by Charles Osgood

There are traps in the English language that are more easily fallen into than gotten out of. One of these is to get so bogged down in the so-called rules that you make it difficult for the person on the receiving end to understand what you are talking about.

At the beginning of every broadcast day, I sign on. At the end, I sign off. There is much work to be done in between. On radio alone there are twenty-one broadcasts a week to be turned out. Each of these has a number of sentences that it's composed of. Words are what each sentence is made up of. What order should these words be put in?

There is a violation of the writing rules which I admit I am frequently guilty of. It is a trap that is easy to fall into. However, it is one that I do not worry much about. Ending a sentence with a preposition is what I am referring to. The astute reader may discover several instances of what I'm talking about in the very piece you are now looking at. Ending a sentence with a preposition is considered okay where I come from. (Some may feel that wherever I come from I should go back to.) Recently I ended a sentence with a preposition, realizing full well that a preposition is what some people think you should never, under any circumstances, end a sentence with. Such people I'm sick to death of, fed up with, and put off by.

If terminal prepositionalism is an error, it is one that there is plenty of distinguished precedent for. Winston Churchill was once taken to task for ending one of his elegant sentences with a preposition and his withering reply was: "This is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."

With me, it all depends on the mood I'm in. Sometimes I don't write sentences that you would want to put a preposition at the end of. Other times the caboose position is the one the little preposition seems to cry out for.

I remember reading somewhere the observation that Pittsburgh is a bad city to get something in your eye in. However, it was pointed out, Pittsburgh happens to be a very good city to get something in your eye out in. This is perfectly logical, since a city people often get something in their eyes in would have a lot of experience in getting things people have gotten in their eyes out.

The placement of prepositions in sentences is not the sort of issue that gets me all riled up. In fact, the people who fuss about such things are the ones I get mad at. There's a story they tell at Harvard University about a visitor to the campus who asks, "Excuse me, but would you be good enough to tell me where the Widener Library is at?"

"Sir," was the sneering reply, "at Harvard we do not end a sentence with a preposition."

"Well, in that case, forgive me," said the visitor. "Permit me to rephrase my question. Would you be good enough to tell me where the Widener Library is at, jackass?"

I think that pretty well sums it up.