jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) (02/12/85)
> We've had two versions of Churchill on prepositions ending sentences > so far. Neither one agrees exactly with the version* I'd heard of. > There must be somebody reading this who has access to a reference > that gives the correct and authoritative version. Would they please > find it and post it --- quickly, before we have half a dozen more > postings on the topic? I went and looked the quote up in the _Oxford Dictionary of Quotations_, which said that, indeed, Churchill had been talking about prepositions at the end of a sentence, and that what he said was: "This is the sort of English up with which I shall not put." Furthermore, they say "attributed to Churchill"! Can it be that the term "dangling preposition" has such a delicious sound that some of us want Churchill to have been talking about it? Or can the mighty ODQ be [gasp!] wrong? Two people sent me mail saying it was "ardent pedantry" up with which he wouldn't put; another delicious term, but again, the sages of Oxford disagree. I'm remaining neutral from here on. Anyway, I yanked my own dogmatic posting after less than 24 hours. (But naturally everyone had to see it anyway!) John Purbrick decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!mit-hermes!jpexg jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA