Preposition stranding

Preposition stranding, sometimes called P-stranding, is the syntactic construction in which a preposition with an object occurs somewhere other than immediately adjacent to its object; for example, at the end of a sentence. The preposition is then described as stranded, hanging, or dangling. This kind of construction is found mainly in English and in some other Germanic languages or dialects. Preposition stranding is also found in languages outside the Germanic family, such as Vata and Gbadi (two languages in the Niger–Congo family), and certain dialects of French spoken in North America.

In English, preposition stranding is found, for instance in open interrogatives, wh relatives, and passive constructions sometimes known as pseudopassives.

Overzealous avoidance of stranded prepositions leads to unnatural-sounding sentences, especially when the preposition is part of an idiomatic phrasal verb, such as the following, apocryphally attributed to Winston Churchill. Note the verb is the phrasal verb "put up with", split to humorous effect:

There are verbal idioms in English that include more than one preposition, so it is possible to have more than one stranded preposition, for instance in the sentence

An extreme example of a sentence with five prepositions at the end:

Even more extreme:

Preposition stranding was in use long before any English speakers objected to it. Many sources consider it to be acceptable in standard formal English. "Great literature from Chaucer to Milton to Shakespeare to the King James version of the Bible was full of so called terminal prepositions."

Mignon Fogarty ("Grammar Girl") says, "nearly all grammarians agree that it's fine to end sentences with prepositions, at least in some cases."Fowler's Modern English Usage says that "One of the most persistent myths about prepositions in English is that they properly belong before the word or words they govern and should not be placed at the end of a clause or sentence."

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