User:TimBuchheim/English Preferences

A note on prepositions. I consider a sentence which ends in a preposition to be poorly phrased, but note that in my opinion many prepositions in the English language are really parts of multi-word verbs. In my view of English grammar, in the sentence “He dropped in on her.” only the word “on” is truly functioning as a preposition. I consider “dropped in” to be a verb with a meaning distinct from that of “dropped”. I don't think most grammarians agree with me, but I think my view makes sense.

The idea of a verb which is made up of a verb and a preposition can be compared to the many Latin verbs which are formed from a preposition and a verb: referre, retinēre, accipere, ascendere, etc. We simply haven't combined them into single words in English, in these cases. (But note that we do commonly use Latin or Greek prepositions as prefixes on English verbs.) So while I try to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition when the preposition is not part of a verb, it's quite acceptable (and very often necessary) if the preposition is functioning as part of the verb, as in the sentence “We had no warning that he would drop by.”