For all the grammar lovers....

[Dougie]

And the rule is:

"Never use a preposition to end a sentence with."​

And a couple more:

"Avoid cliches like the plague."
"Remember to never split an infinitive."
"Never, ever use repetitive redundancies."
"Use parallel structure when you write and in speaking."
"The rigid rule of 'i before e except after c' raises spelling to a sceince."
​

And there are dozens more where these came from.

OK, so a young kid from a rural CT town gets accepted to Yale. It's his first day on campus and he's a little lost. He nervously approaches a preppy upperclassman coming his way.

"Could you please tell me where the library is at?"

With a smirk and a condescending laugh the preppy replies "Didn't anyone ever tell you never to end a sentence with a preposition?"

"Oh yeah, sorry" replies the young man. "Let me try that again. Could you please tell me where the library is at, a**hole?"

Forgive me Boneyarders. I couldn't resist.

 

[Zorro]

or you could argue that because the Latin could not be split, therefore the English should not be split

That is, of course, the argument that IS made, for what it's worth. But keep in mind that the Roman Empire came to a bad end.

 

[trb123]

I cringe every time I hear my son (and wife) say "Who is it from?"
Am I the ony one in the world to use "whom?

 

[Zorro]

Pretty much, I would guess. Except maybe Wonkster.

 

[cohenzone]

I cringe every time I hear my son (and wife) say "Who is it from?"
Am I the ony one in the world to use "whom?

There are more whoman beings than you can imagine. Take heart.

 

[RadyLady]

I cringe every time I hear my son (and wife) say "Who is it from?"
Am I the ony one in the world to use "whom?

Correctly spoken it would be: "From whom is it?"

Now that does sound odd to my ears. Often I would say, "from whom?"

Whom is not as uncommon as it appears to be.

 

[RadyLady]

Grammer lovars......

hee hee hee....been wanting to write that all day but the slowness of the Boneyard is so frustrating that I had to close the page for a while...

Was there an upgrade? My page appears to have changed.

 

[Zorro]

The great linguist, Ted Higgs, said in one of his books that "the purpose of grammar is not to make onself understood, but to avoid being misunderstood". Sounds sensible to me. If whatever you say or write conveys your meaning unambiguously, then your grammar is correct enough and rules be hanged. imho, of course. As far as who-whom is concerned, I think it has come to the point where it is very difficult to use "whom" in informal speech or writing without sounding somewhat stilted and precious. RadyLady's "from whom" may be an exception that proves the rule, as "from who" would still sound odd.

 

[Zorro]

My most hated: "I feel badly" unless the person means his/her fingers are numb.

In spite of my general lack of respect for prescriptionism, I have to admit that I share your feeling about this one, which about 90% of BY posters seem to commit. I also have a totally illogical negative reaction to the use of "less" rather than "fewer" to describe quantifiable variables, such as games won and lost, even though "less" conveys the meaning unambiguously. Well, we all have our quirks.

 

[Tidepool]

A lot of contributors to this thread are going to enjoy this, from -- of all people -- Weird Al Yankovic.