Ending sentences with a preposition.

My favorite birthday card of all time had the following exchange between two high school girls:

First girl: Where’s your birthday party at?

Second girl: You shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition.

First girl: Where’s your birthday party at, brat?

Friends, there are a million myths about the rules of writing. One such myth involves the supposed prohibition against ending sentences with a preposition. Here is what the Chicago Manual of Style has to says about that “rule”:

The traditional caveat of yesteryear against ending sentences with prepositions is, for most writers, an unnecessary and pedantic restriction. As Winston Churchill famously said, “That is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.” A sentence that ends in a preposition may sound more natural than a sentence carefully constructed to avoid a final preposition. Compare Those are the guidelines an author should adhere to with Those are the guidelines to which an author should adhere. The “rule” prohibiting terminal prepositions was an ill-founded superstition.

Nevertheless, the natural points of emphasis in a sentence fall at the beginning and the end—with the end receiving the greatest emphasis. In general, therefore, crucial information that you want the reader to remember should come at the end. This is why you should be wary of ending sentences with a preposition: not because there’s a prohibition against it, but because it wastes the end of a sentence—the point of maximum emphasis—on a lifeless word with no real content.

That is all for now …