Grammar Improvement

Since ending a sentence with a preposition is not correct grammar, I propose the following change to the 'FORUMS' menu.

"Topics I Have Posted In" should become "Topics In Which I Have Posted"

Would I still be able to find Topics In Which I Had Posted In?

Whatever you want! Just stop hitting my wrists with that ruler!!

If I'm not mistaken, it's not wrong grammatically to end a sentence with a preposition, but it goes against established convention.  Best I can tell, that convention is on its way out.

That's funny... and correct.  It could be shorter though if using "I've".

- Wil

Oh... well, technically, (Ozzie), none of the menu items are actual sentences.  They're fragments, or bullet points... so the preposition rule does not apply.

If the item was "Show me topics I have posted in[.]"... then we'd have a valid case for a grammer rule application.  If it doesn't end in a period, it's not a sentence (sort of).

- Wil

Language is certainly dynamic. You used to say: "Live and let live!" (You know you did, you know you did, you know you did.) But in this ever-changing world in which we live in - makes you give in and cry; say: "Live and let die!"

 The "grammarian's grammarian," H.W. Fowler, published A
Dictionary of Modern English Usage in 1926. (It is kept up to date with periodic revisions. All page references in this article are to A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965].) This work is considered a standard reference, often used as the arbiter when questions of grammar and usage produce conflicting answers. This book is quite forceful about the silliness of the "rule" that one must not end a sentence with a preposition:

Actually, it IS grammatically incorrect to end a sentence with a preposotion.

As far as the "established convention" being dismissed, I suppose you would be right if we all want to sound like a bunch of snorting pigs when we speak...

What does it matter to ya
When you got a job to do
You gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow hell

Slap his wrists for those prepositions

Rules regarding sentence-ending prepositions, split infinitives, etc., are the residue of grammarians who tried to enforce their rules a few centuries ago, in trying to force english to be more like latin, which they viewed as a more perfect and orderly language. The best writers manage to not be bothered so tell your 2nd grade teacher who orders you to never to begin a sentence with "and" or "but" to get lost.

The language is living. See it this way: the dictionary doesn't set rules for usage, it records usage.

What does it matter to {*ya*} you?
When you've got a job to do,
You've got{*ta*} to do it well;
You've got{*ta*} to give the other fellow hell.

[sigh] [It] makes you give in and cry.

{Boldly] We don't need no education

"We don't need no education" - That's a double negative.

We don't need any education.

or

We need no education.

An indication that the writer has no education. But he's fabulously rich (and popular).

Not ending a sentence with a preposition was a rule imposed to conform English to Latin Grammar. To avoid ending a sentence with a preposition often requires constructing a convoluted sentence.

If those who ask, "Where are from?" rather than, "From where are you?" are snorting pigs, then nearly of us all are.

Following a so-called rule, whether it makes sense or not, is to give up the right to think and make judgments.

As Shaw said about the rule,  "That is something up with which I shall not put."

Azures, if dismissing established convention makes us snorting pigs, explain to us why you ended your last sentence with an elipsis.

The 'rule' about prepositions seems to date from 1762, in Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar. It became very influential in the later eighteenth century, in part because it was strongly supported by Hugh Blair in his Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres (1783). They both say that ending a sentence with a preposition isn't grammatically wrong (whatever that means), but that it is inelegant. Writers on language of that period were very prescriptive, and so they tend to say that such-and-such is 'inadmissible' or 'wrong' where a modern writer would probably describe it as 'appropriate for informal but not formal usage', or something. Is texting to chess.com formal or informal? I always put on a suit and tie to do it, but others might differ.

Lowth and Blair were both Scottish, incidentally, if anybody wants to make anything of it.

I like the Shaw story; I'd heard it attributed to Winston Churchill, but your version will probably predate him - and it's the kind of story which gets around.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is a bit like splitting an infinitive (e.g. to boldly go); it's not a blunder like dangling a participial modifier ("Playing chess in the park, several raccoons were observed hanging around by the garbage bins."), but rather something a self-conscious writer should 'use with care.'

When I've found that I've ended a sentence with a preposition, I just take it as an opportunity to ask myself if I missed a more elegant construction.

You rang?