This is certainly a rule I was aware (and appreciative) of

Maria Montalvo

Editor’s note: We are happy to provide this public service announcement from columnist Maria A. Montalvo. It’s one we heartily agree with.

The English language boasts 170 prepositions (although we only use about half of them on a regular basis), but why do these little words create such a stir in the world of grammar?

Even Winston Churchill supposedly expressed frustration with the strict grammar rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition with an appropriately ironic turn of phrase, “This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.”

However, it is an unverified attribution, and his quote has been ratcheted up over time to imply a bit of irritation: “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.”

Meanwhile, those who support limiting the placement of prepositions even changed the quote to place Churchill firmly on their side of linguistic correctness, claiming he said, “Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”

It seems we can finally leave Churchill out of the argument, though, because last week, Merriam-Webster announced that it is permissible to end a sentence with a preposition!

More precisely, Merriam-Webster publicly demonstrated the rule invalid by breaking it, "It is permissible in English for a preposition to be what you end a sentence with."

Many are horrified, wondering if this is simply another step toward dismantling the bastions of civility, while a few knew nothing of the rule to begin with. Others are expressing gratitude for the flexibility to not create awkward or misleading sentences in order to avoid the dreaded ending preposition.  

I didn’t know what he was talking about. Or I didn’t know about what he was talking.

Where did you come from? Or, from where did you come?

Are you on fire? Or, are you being fired on?

The funny thing is – no “rule” about ending a sentence with a preposition actually exists. It has always been a suggestion, a recommendation, an oversimplification of sentence structure rules to prevent the addition of unnecessary words (where is your brother at?) while still providing critical relational context.

The “rule” originated from a spat between a 17^th-century English poet, John Dryden, and fellow poet-playwright Ben Jonson. Dryden criticized Jonson for too often ending his sentences with a preposition and cited a grammarian from the 1650s, Joshua Poole.

Poole had inexplicably claimed that English should follow the general guidelines of Latin and the Romance languages, meaning structurally sound sentences should not end with a preposition.

English is not a Romance language. Yet this belief has persisted in English-speaking minds for nearly four centuries. Merriam-Webster captioned its controversial post: “That's what we're talking about. Now, does that sound better than, That's about what we are talking?”

We can continue to appreciate this formerly incorrectly cited rule it as a guideline, a little something to push us toward slightly more sophisticated modes of speech or writing. That said, when I read Merriam-Webster’s justification, I was far more offended by the overuse of contractions than I was by the resolution of contraction usage.

I suppose we all have swords we fall on when it comes to grammar (do not get me started about the Oxford comma), but as Joseph Heller so vividly expressed in his gut-wrenching novel, “Catch-22,” about the importance of saving literature in modern society.

“Anything worth dying for is certainly worth living for.”