English Insights 1, Sociolinguistics and position of prepositions: "Put out the trash"?: Elitism in English based on the prescriptive model.
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English Insights 1, Sociolinguistics and position of prepositions: "Put out the trash": Elitism in English based on the prescriptive model.

Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI

Michael D. Powers, Ph.D., USCCI

US Certified Court Interpreter 1980 / Ph.D. Spanish Portuguese 1981 / 24 years university professor / Estimates: 12,000+ depositions, hearings, etc. / 850 trials / 3000 documents / Conference Interpreter 650 conferences

发布日期: 2022年9月23日
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What do you imagine when you see the sentence above? Does "put out the trash" evoke an image of trash on fire that needs to be put out? Or does it evoke trash that needs to be placed on the curb for pickup?

According to English teachers, we are taught not to end sentences in prepositions. This style of language usage based on the rules of do this and don't do that is called prescriptivism. However, a different approach describes actual usage instead of telling us how we are supposed to speak, and it is called descriptivism.

In a descriptive model, it is not that everything goes, but rather usage is appropriate for the situation.

Let's go back to some classic lyrics by Beatles when they sang "It don't matter to me." Although prescriptively incorrect to use the third-person singular "don't" instead of "doesn't", the usage is nonetheless appropriate. Why? Because both visually and verbally, their image (long hair unacceptable to the societal leaders and parents at that time) along with their rebellious use of language was appropriate for the message they were sending. Furthermore, this is what their fans related to, and not "something to which their fans related."

Sometimes when I travel and I inevitably speak to an English teacher, I will ask him or her if you should end a sentence in a preposition, and he or she says no. I ask why, and if any answer is given, it is because the rules say so. Then I ask why the rules say so. Silence.

During the Renaissance, when all the rules were being written, the scholars writing them based English rules on the rules of usage in Latin. The so-called "elite" were tell us, the masses, what to do. But as I point out to English teachers, English is a Germanic language, not a romance language; thus, Latin rules are not applicable.

And let's look at it from the view of sociolinguistics or language and society. The most educated people in the world, native speakers of English, end sentences in prepositions all the time. It is not stigmatized usage at all.

In conclusion, when we put the trash out, let's include obsolete ideas that we can hamstring our language usage by archaic rules superimposed from a language that albeit offers us 60% of our lexicon, is structurally from a different language group.

I would like to thankfully aknowledge the contribution of Jane Lamb-Ruiz. Her comment can be seen below.

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Jane Lamb-Ruiz

Senior Expert Translator & Expert Language Witness (French, Spanish and Portuguese to English)

2 年

I think it is useful to make a distinction here between spoken and written language. In a written, formal text, I would avoid a preposition at the end of a sentence. But in spoken language, it is often a must.

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