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He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
::Today's soundtrack: Yaz "Situation (Extended)" ::
I have gone on a few times about grammar, the proper use of words, and so on here at the ol' Bloody Hell. Yet I do this with the full knowledge that I myself am not perfect. Of course not. Other than my intentional use of improper grammar for the purposes of fun and the funny, I am very guilty of ending sentences with prepositions.
You know, I don't even know what a preposition is, exactly. So, I looked it up and here's what I found (copy/pasted from dictionary.com):
any member of a class of words found in many languages that are used before nouns, pronouns, or other substantives to form phrases functioning as modifiers of verbs, nouns, or adjectives, and that typically express a spatial, temporal, or other relationship, i.e. in, on, by, to, since.
Boy, does that sound complicated. It couldn't be easy like nouns or verbs, could it? No wonder I end sentences with them and leave them out there dangling all the time. There is probably a whole list of words which are prepositions only I don't know it and therefore use them at the sentence's end improperly.
Sure, there are the ones we all know like "in." We all know that we should NOT say Let me get a glass to pour that in and that we should instead say Let me get a glass in which to pour that. And doesn't that just sound so classy and sophisticated like? Saying "in which to" just makes you sound so gosh darn smart. Unfortunately, it doesn't really come all that naturally to talk like that, does it? It's so easy to say Do you have a hanger I can put my jacket on rather than Do you have a hanger on which I can put my jacket. I don't know about you, but if I were to actually make a conscious effort to no longer end sentences in prepositions, I'd have to take several minutes to think about what I'm going to say before I say it.
Yeah, I just looked up on this here internet a sample list of prepositions and was kinda surprised by some of the words on there. Words like about, over, past, through and aboard I never would have guessed. So whenever I say "what are you on about?" or "toss it over" or "I need a drill bit long enough to go all the way through," I'm using improper grammar. Shame on me.
I don't know if this is something I will be able to correct. Being the strong, silent type, I usually only chime in during conversations if I have something witty to interject, and if I need to take time in order to formulate the proper use of prepositions, well, then my comedic timing will be all shot to hell. Unless of course it's one of those days where I'm talking in an English accent. "Were you able to find a spot in which to park your vehicle? Jolly good, old chap. Jolly good." Oh yes, that works nicely.
William the Bloody (where all my bitches at?)
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