Prepositions

I covered this pretty well on the Pet Peeves page, I think, but it's worth mentioning again so I can go into greater detail . . . and rant about that goddamed "at."

I will start by mentioning that the word "preposition" is not entirely accurate for what I'm covering. A preposition precedes its phrase ("from France"). A postposition follows its phrase ("refer to"), and the rarer circumposition surrounds its phrase ("from now on"). These three parts of speech are collectively known as adpositions. There's also the interposition, which occurs inside its phrase ("word for word").

It doesn't end there. An inposition is an adposition between constituents of a complex complement, and an ambiposition is an adposition that can function as either a preposition or a postposition.

I could go on, but no one's understanding this so far anyway. To simplify matters, I will refer to all of the above as "prepositions."

So. First, as I already stated on the Pet Peeves page, ending sentences with prepositions is not actually a grammar rule; it doesn't have a basis in English syntax. I tend to frown on preposition stranding, but sometimes it can't be helped if you wish to avoid stilted or unclear speech.

Having said that, ending sentences with "at" is SO goddammed annoying. DON'T do it.

Now. As I understand it, prepositions are the trickiest part of English to non-native speakers. With words like "on(to)" and "in(to)," I can't blame them. Those are fairly simple to sort out, though. Simply remember that "to" signifies direction. "Onto" implies movement toward a surface; "into" implies movement toward the interior of a volume. It's more complicated than that, but it's not really worth all that detail. If you don't need to use that extra "to," avoid it.

Prepositions are classified in different ways, and they sometimes overlap with other parts of speech, such as adverbs. This of course complicates the ending of sentences non-rule. You may wish to avoid ending sentences with prepositions purely to avoid being corrected, though at least you could then point out that it is not a real rule.

Like the split infinitive, I used the sentence-ending non-rule in The Grammarosaurus.