Some years ago, as I continued the pleasant
journey through my English learning process, I was thrilled when I discovered I
was able to construct a sentence like It is the best company one can work
for. In Spanish—my mother tongue—a sentence like this would sound very odd
and is not permitted, so it is not strange that up until today I have not seen
such construction. An acceptable translation into
Spanish of the sentence in question is Es la mejor compañía para la que uno
puede trabajar, while the literal translation, that is, Es la mejor
compañía uno puede trabajar para, sounds weird. In English it sounds good
to me, so I was surprised when I learnt that one is not supposed to end a
sentence with a preposition.
Two articles
published in The Guardian, one by David Marsh, “10 grammar rules you can forget: how to stop worrying and write proper”, and the other one by Steven
Pinker, “10 'grammar rules' it's OK to break (sometimes)”, address this
issue—among other grammar rules. The writers state that the rule about not
ending a sentence with a preposition was created by John Dryden, who declared
that it was not elegant to do otherwise because in Latin “the equivalent to a
preposition is attached to a noun and cannot be separated from it” (Pinker). By
the way, Spanish compares to Latin in this respect, but that is a matter of
another discussion.
I was
relieved when I read they recommend that one should not follow this rule
strictly. There are cases when it is OK to violate this rule, and Pinker points
out that one should choose “pied-piping”—putting a preposition in front of a
“wh” word, as in The road along which you are walking—when using a
formal style and leaving the preposition at the end of the sentence “when it
contributes a crucial bit of information”; while Marsh remarks “to ignore this
rule”. I agree with Pinker about the fact that leaving a preposition at the end
of a sentence can make it finish “with a word that is too lightweight to serve as
its focal point”. He gives an example of how a sentence could lose its power,
by moving the preposition for from its original position to the end in a
sentence that was part of the words Abraham Lincoln said in an important
occasion. One can see that, in doing so, the resultant sentence lacks the
gravity that is appropriate in such situation. On the other hand, I do also
agree with him upon when to leave a preposition at the end of a sentence, and I
am pleased that he listed as an example of such use—before he gave this word of
advice—a sentence that is part of the lyrics of a popular rock song. Now, I
ask: How could The Beatles have written the line “it's you she's thinking of”
in their song She Loves You had they not realised the sentence sounded
beautiful? It completes the idea of giving the hero of the song hope of getting
his girl back. And this song is precisely one of the many I have grown fond of,
and listened to a lot of times as an exercise for improving my
English-listening capabilities. So, since this kind of construction was used by
a famous and beloved rock band, it is obvious the use had been widely accepted
for a long time, for the composers were young and, being the English language
their expression tool along with music, they used it both in daily communication
and in creative writing.
Ending a
sentence with a preposition is one of the matters grammarians have been
discussing for years. John Dryden commenced its prohibition, but the use of the
language allows us to ignore this rule when appropriate, being up to the writer
when to do so, as long as they are sensible of what they want the tone of their
pieces of writing to be, and it does not happen to the detriment of the beauty
and power of the sentence, and thus, of the words surrounding it. It is common
among languages influenced by Latin that controversies arise in language usage,
amid which some people are very passionate while others take a fairly relaxed
attitude towards these grammar quarrels. English has not escaped this fate. Why
does a non-native English speaker care about this subject? you may be
wondering. Well, I do care. I am a user of the language too. Being bilingual, I
testify Spanish has its problems as well, though as far as English is
concerned, I regard this very issue as very interesting. And right now I am
thinking this is one of the wondrous features of English that make it a
beautiful language. What are you thinking of?
Works
cited
Marsh, David.
“10 grammar rules you can forget: how to stop worrying and write proper.” The
Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies, 30
Sept. 2013. Web. 7 Oct. 2014.
Pinker,
Steven. “10 'grammar rules' it's OK to break (sometimes).” The Guardian.
Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies, 15 Aug. 2014. Web.
7 Oct. 2014.
The Beatles.
“She Loves You.” PAST MASTERS. EMI Records Ltd., 2009. CD.