the right word order

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Please, tell me what the right word order for a dependent clause in these sentences is:
1.
A) That is the person who I am in love with
B) That is the person with whom I am in love

2.
A) I was thinking about the box in which I kept the money
b) I was thinking about the box which I kept the money in

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Type: Question • Score: 1 • Views: 1,835 • Replies: 20

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@Smarty11,

1 B
2 A

Avoid ending sentences with a preposition.

1 Reply

@Ragman,

How about questions?

1 Reply

@Smarty11,

Regardless of whether or not the sentence is posed as a question, it should not end in a preposition.

2 Replies

@Ragman,

So, "Who are you in love with?" is incorrect?

1 Reply

@Ragman,

Quote:

it should not end in a preposition.

An assertion up with which I simply will not put

0 Replies

@Smarty11,

If you're having a conversationally informal every-day chat, "Whom are you in love with? is acceptable. However, if it's more formal (classroom), you might say "With whom are you in love?"

3 Replies

@Ragman,

"What time had you finished your classes by?" is also unacceptable? and I better ask "By what time had you finished your classes?"

1 Reply

@Smarty11,

As I previously stated, ending the sentence using a preposition is not considered good grammar, when speaking formally.

"At what time had you finished your classes?"

or

"When had you finished your classes?"

1 Reply

@Ragman,

1) Avoid ending sentences with a preposition.

2) Regardless of whether or not the sentence is posed as a question, it should not end in a preposition.

3) If you're having a conversationally informal every-day chat, "Whom are you in love with? is acceptable. However, if it's more formal (classroom), you might say "With whom are you in love?"

I can't wait for your next bit of sage wisdom, Ragman.

There has never, ever in the history of the English language been anything wrong, ungrammatical or untoward about ending a sentence or question with a preposition.

Ragman is repeating one of the old wives tales, prescriptions, canards taught to him in his youth by teachers who knew about as much about language as Merry Andrew.

Quote:

50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice
By Geoffrey K. Pullum

...

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497

1 Reply

@Smarty11,

Please, tell me what the right word order for a dependent clause in these sentences is:
1.
A) That is the person who I am in love with.
B) That is the person with whom I am in love.

Both have appropriate word order, Smarty. The second one is more formal and is the only time/place where 'whom' is grammatically required [over 'who'], ie. when the preposition is fronted.

2.
A) I was thinking about the box in which I kept the money.
b) I was thinking about the box which I kept the money in.

Again, both have appropriate word order with the first more formal, though, I submit, not as big a degree of formality as with 'whom' above.

1 Reply

@Ragman,

Quote:

So, "Who are you in love with?" is incorrect?

Quote:

If you're having a conversationally informal every-day chat, "Whom are you in love with? is acceptable. However, if it's more formal (classroom), you might say "With whom are you in love?"

You failed to answer Smarty's question, Ragman. I guess it's tough when you're trying to extricate a stump from your behind.

2 Replies

@JTT,

Nothing I stated was incorrect.
I came here to answer a question that was posed, not engage or be critiqued by a psycho. I'm done with you.

1 Reply

@Ragman,

Quote:

"At what time had you finished your classes?"

"By what time" is also ok though slightly diff in meaning

0 Replies

@JTT,

So, Is it the same thing with the following sentences ? Are both variants appropriate?)
"He's not the right person who you should listen to " and "He's not the right person to whom you should listen"???

2 Replies

@JTT,

Quote:

"Whom are you in love with?" is acceptable

"who," however, is better in everyday conversation to avoid the appearance of hauteur

0 Replies

@Ragman,

Quote:

Nothing I stated was incorrect.

Quote:

Prepositionssss…

September 2, 2011 @ 10:38 am · Filed by Mark Liberman under Prescriptivist poppycock

Yesterday, P.Z. Myers at Pharyngula posted some thoughts on education under the title "A goal to strive for". A zombie commenter promptly reached up through the soil of his gravesite to ask

is this where we snarkily mock PZ for ending the title of this post on education with a preposition?

As the 1995 Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes, in the entry on "Preposition at End",

…recent commentators — at least since Fowler 1926 — are unanimous in their rejection of the notion that ending a sentence with a preposition is an error or an offense against propriety. Fowler terms the idea a "cherished superstition." […] So if everyone who is in the know agrees, there's no problem, right?

Wrong.

Thank you for your reply to my questions but I find it extremely difficult to trust an opinion on grammar prepared by someone who ends a sentence with a preposition.

This is part of a letter received by one of our editors who had answered some questions for the writers. Members of the never-end-a-sentence-with-a-preposition school are still with us and are not reluctant to make themselves known…

...

jtt: I'm not going to hotlink all these entries. You'll have to go to the sight [hi Roger ] listed below to link those, NUMEROUS [Ragman] discussions on just how loony this particular prescription is.

"X nazi", 4/7/2004
"An internet pilgrim's guide to stranded prepositions", 4/11/2004
"A Churchill story up with which I will no longer put", 12/8/2004
"Better a spectacular blunder than a hint of unseemliness", 4/25/2005
"The CliffsNotes version", 6/10/2005
"If we look, simply, to the French", 6/29/2005
"Avoidance", 7/5/2005
"New Yorker search engine stark staring mad", 9/20/2005
"Churchill vs. editorial nonsense", 11/27/2005
"18th-century grammarians vs. Shakespeare et al.", 9/9/2006
"Hot Dryden-on-Johnson action", 5/1/2007
"Forgive me, awful poet", 5/2/2007
"Prepositional anxiety and Voldemort's wand", 8/25/2007
"When Zombie Rules attack", 8/26/2008
" Also, check the back seat", 11/7/2009
"'Latin-obsessed 17th century introverts'?", 8/26/2010
"You can get preposition stranding right to start with", 10/3/2010
"Lady Bracknell strands even adjunct prepositions", 11/3/2010

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3407

0 Replies

@Smarty11,

1 Reply

@Smarty11,

Quote:

So, Is it the same thing with the following sentences ? Are both variants appropriate?)

"He's not the right person who you should listen to " and "He's not the right person to whom you should listen"???

Most assuredly they are appropriate, Smarty.

0 Replies

@JTT,

JTT and some others sometimes quote without the box, confusing the casual participant, and I can understand why: If you use QUOTE instead of REPLY then it's stuck between "[ quote]" and "[/ quote]", often introducing unexpected problems if you need to break it up, esp if you're somewhat less proficient typist such as I or if you're not familiar with the rules involving spacebar and sequence

(Those who have experimented will appreciate the reason for the extra spaces above)

Then it takes you (me) so long to figure out what you've done wrong that Mac stops you right in the middle of trying to straighten it all out

So what I do instead is, first copy entire message, then REPLY, pasting it in the reply box. Where I need a break I now insert three returns before highlight, then hit the BBCode "Quote"

Yes it sounds even more complicated but after a few tries you'll find it easy

0 Replies

the right word order

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