hello grammarians today I want to talk
about ending sentences with prepositions
and I want to tell you straight up it is
totally okay like it is perfectly
grammatically correct and sensible and
fine to end sentences with prepositions
in English and if you don't know what I
mean that's fine let me let me throw out
some examples like it's a crazy world we
live in for example is a sentence that
ends in in which is a preposition and
for years for hundreds of years there
have been people language authorities
that have been telling you it's not okay
to end a sentence with a preposition let
me tell you by the power vested in me it
is totally okay this is one of those
language superstitions that will not die
taking away the terminal preposition
takes away sentences like that's not
behavior all put up with and in fact
some of you have maybe heard the
statement that is supposedly attributed
to Winston Churchill where he says that
is something with which up I will not
put which kind of emphasizes how clunky
that is you know if that's supposed to
be formal high language it sounds really
inarticulate not a fan this is
ultimately a question not of grammar but
of style because there's nothing there's
nothing about it's a crazy world we live
in that doesn't make sense that doesn't
function as a sentence indeed there's
nothing grammatically incorrect with you
know this is behavior with which up I
will not put it's just needlessly
verbose and twisting back on itself for
the sake of avoiding something that
doesn't need to be avoided we can trace
all of this back to Robert loathe a man
who was the Bishop of London during part
of the 18th century and he wrote about
terminal prepositions in his 1762 short
introduction to English grammar which
reads in part quote this is an idiom
which our language is strongly inclined
to it prevails in common conversation
and suits very well with the familiar
style in writing but the placing of the
preposition before the relative is more
graceful and agrees much better with the
solemn and elevated style but bishop
loathe may I direct your attention to
this part of your statement this is an
idiom which our language is strongly
inclined to even when Bishop loath is
using what he calls this solemn and
elevated style he himself cannot avoid
ending a clause boom with a preposition
game set match sir the question is why
did loath have such a bee in his bonnet
about prepositions at the end of
sentences and the answer can be found in
Latin follow me over to the next grade
here is the deal with Latin in Latin
prepositions have a very particular
function similar to how they work in
English but let's let's break apart what
the word preposition is in Latin the
word preposition comes from pray pose
ETO which means placed before writer
placed before because here's something
cool about Latin Latins word order rules
are different than English's word order
rules I'll explain you know in English
we have this expression to put the cart
before the horse which means to embark
on a project before you're really ready
and this is a very ancient expression in
fact um one that can be attested in
Latin like so on tech um component a
right okay so this is before the horse
the cart to put here's the thing about
prepositions in Latin is that in Latin
this ante before always has to go has to
be positioned before the word it's
attached to so before the horse but in
Latin you can rearrange this sentence
any way you like so you could say Karim
ponente on to equina
and just because of the way Latin works
because of its case endings and and
because of this prepositional
relationship we can always tell no
matter what order the words are in how
the sentence parts relate to one another
or we could also switch around pull in a
column on two equi right like it could
go in any order
as long as ante was before equal now
admittedly in English if you wanted to
end this with a preposition it would
still sound pretty awkward like the cart
is the thing that the horse is before
but it is still grammatical if you move
this thing if you move on teh out of
order there's no way to tell what's
going on in the sentence Latin during
the time that loth was Bishop of London
was the language of scholarship right it
was this language that enabled people
all over the European continent to
communicate with each other in a common
language of knowledge it was the
language of religion and philosophy
and all of that added up to make Latin
really cool and also very powerful and
because of the history of the English
language which basically entails people
in boats coming over the North Sea to
beat the tar out of Celts and
anglo-saxons and leave you know Latin or
Norse or French shaped dents in their
language English has this kind of
uncomfortable relationship with Latin
English scholars I kinda had an
inferiority complex and so during the
17th and 18th century you really see
this move towards Latin izing English
trying to make English grammar behave
more like Latin grammar but English
comes from a different language heritage
into Germanic language and that doesn't
mean it's better or worse than Latin it
just means it's different and it behaves
differently we shouldn't try to treat
English as though it were anything other
than English so if anyone ever tells you
that you can't end a sentence with a
preposition send them this page
or if you prefer you know where to send
them to which which is here on Khan
Academy where you can learn anything
Dave it out