

Friday, April 8, 2016



A cranky opinion for 


The following is the opinion of a cranky old man who never got more than a B- in English.  Opposing opinions are welcome but they will be ignored.  As always, please, no name calling...that means you, you big stupid-head!

Apparently it is now quite all right to conversate instead of talk.

Mom and Dad are instructed to Parent their child, not raise them.

We don’t get together to resolve a problem, we partner for a solution.

Tenses no longer matter, and neither do these things (‘)…I often hear people say “I had went to my Mom house with my Baby Daddy” and they are never corrected on their use of the English language.  I am certain these people all are at least high school graduates, so it must now be acceptable to speak this way.

Given these and other English language indiscretions, I hereby declare that it is perfectly correct to end a sentence a preposition with.

From this time forward it is perfectly acceptable to ask someone, “What are you up to.”  “To what are you up” sounds wrong to me dammit and I’m not going to follow that rule anymore.

“To where are you going?” I don’t think so.  “For what are you doing that?” Not anymore.

This is a new rule that I am very happy about.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is something I am no longer frightened of.

I don't know where this rule ever came from.  I am just glad that the rule has now been called off.

From now on, if it sounds weird to me, whether conversating or blogulating, I am not rules following going be to.



  1. If you are not rules following going be to,how will we be sure that ended your sentence is?

  2. I'm gobsmacked!! I do get annoyed when the English language is messed with but your interpretation is brilliant.

  3. Hi Cranky,

    The only people who truly speak English properly are we British people.

    You Americans flout all the rules - for example there is a "u" in humour and it's "Maths" not "Math". And what the hell is "Aluminum"?

    I never break grammar rules, myself. For example I would never be so callous as to brazenly split an infinitive or end a sentence with a preposition such as of.

    Nor wud yew katch mee mayking careles speling misteaks!




  4. I end sentences with prepositions all the time, but "I had went to my Mom house with my Baby Daddy" is just plain wrong. Grammatically. WTF are they learning in school these days?

  5. I think I live in an area of the country where everyone ends sentences with a preposition. Itsounds very strange to me otherwise. But yes, even stranger to change grammar rules.

  6. That has never been a rule. Look in any book on English grammar and you will not find the rule that you cannot end a sentence with a preposition. It was made up by snooty people, so you are welcome to call an end to it, and i hope everyone on earth agrees with you, it was dumb to begin with.

    1. You are 100% correct as I learned while researching this post, however the preposition myth is so deeply ingrained that I decided to ignore that it is not a rule and make the declaration myself.

      Now I have to figure out when to say "My wife and me" or "My wife and I."

    2. That's easy!! Just drop "my wife and" & it'll make sense. Would you say, "Give it to I" or "Give it to me"? "I like it" or Me like it"? Hope that clears that for you up!!

  7. Laughing at Sarah's comment I am.

  8. Blogulating? Never heard that term but I'll probably use it. I've never worried about ending a sentence with a preposition.

  9. My mom is someone who would say, "With whom are you going?"

    It's tempting to pick up on the way your parents talk, but in her case, speaking overly formal English would have made my classmates believe I didn't know English very well. So I had to purposely speak colloquial English, not proper English to fit in.

    I read an article a while back that young people consider someone to be "more sincere" about what thy're saying via text when emojis are used. No emojis = less sincerity.

    So informal English is only going to get more informal. Smiley face. Shrug.

  10. When someone calls on the phone and asks for me, I say, "This is she." instead of "this is her" and my kids think I'm being too formal.

  11. I believe I talk a bit like Nasreen's mother or like Katrina. I'm the one who proofreads reports and corrects "...the data shows..." to "...the data show..."

    Of course you shouldn't get too crazy in casual conversation. I've heard the story that a proofreader/editor once changed one of Winston Churchill's sentences around so that it would not end with a preposition. Upon which Churchill supposedly remarked, "This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."

  12. A day without a preposition-ending sentence is like a day without Cranky cranking. I do it a lot, depending what mood I'm in. Even though I cut my grammar teeth on proper valedictorian sentence structure.

  13. What a relief to know that preposition thingy is not a real rule anyway. Phew.

  14. Omg.. The first time I heard that word conversate was when I was in a courtroom and this guy is standing before the judge and he says, "But yer honor, I was convesatin'." I couldn't believe it then. I can't believe it now, and I always correct people in the comments. Hahahahahaha.

  15. Just experienced a bad flashback to elementary school. Nun at the (real!) blackboard, viciously diagramming sentences with a demonic gleam in her eye. Poor little me. Not an idea what she was babbling about, slumping in my seat consumed in "there goes my perfect GPA" misery!




