Monday, September 01, 2008

Embarassing Story

I was just in the copy room making some copies of receipts for a business expense that I incurred last week and for which I was submitting a reimbursement request. (that sentence originally ended I was submitting a reimbursement request for and then I remembered for is a preposition - so although it may sound odd, that sentence is grammatically correct)

Pause. Okay, after I "fixed" my sentence, I thought I remembered reading some time ago that you actually COULD end a sentence with a preposition in English. So I did some research, and in fact you can. It’s in LATIN that you can’t end a sentence with a preposition. However, when the preposition is unnecessary (at the end of the sentence or otherwise), that’s when you should leave it off. For example, when people say “where’s it at?” I grit my teeth every time! “Where is it” is sufficient. Of course, “Where’s it?” doesn’t sound quite as good, but “where is it at” is the same as “where’s it at” and it’s just adding that extra at that you don’t need! There’s your grammar lesson for the day – you can end a sentence in a preposition, just don’t add an unnecessary one. So I suppose my opening sentence above would have been correct as originally written.

Play. After I opened the copy machine after copying the receipts, the movement of opening the lid sent my receipts flying all around. The smallest one (which happened to be the biggest expense) flew right in the crack between the two pieces of the copy machine (the collating piece and the copying piece). AHHH!!! I looked around, underneath it and behind it – and then I called Geoff, who uses the copy machine WAY more than I do. Thank goodness it’s Labor Day and no one’s here. After sufficient mocking and trying to figure out a way to find the receipt, Geoff finally found the lever to pull the two pieces apart and rescue my valuable receipt. Yay!

1 comment:

oma said...

For years I have repeated the sentence: "Never use a preposition to end a sentence with." :-) And now it's okay in English?