History Main / PrepositionsAreNotToEndSentencesWith

* In ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' episode "[[Recap/CheersS4E5 Diane's Nightmare]]", Diane dreams that Sam's boorishness has just been an [[ObfuscatingStupidity act]] for the bar patrons; he's actually cultured and erudite. As he plays her a classical piano piece of his own composition, she embraces him and says, "Forget the piano. Let me be the instrument you play on." Sam's response: "Diane, do you realize you just ended that proposition... with a preposition?" This is a RunningGag between those two, first used in "[[Recap/CheersS1E3TheTortelliTort The Tortelli Tort]]". When Ed threatens to sue the bar over Carla assaulting him, Sam tries to convince him that Carla is getting therapy for her anger problems:

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* This is what sparks the {{hilarity|Ensues}} in the ''WebVideo/HitlerRants'' video "[[GrammarNazi Downfall of Grammar]]".

* ''Film/ScaryMovie 4'' does this with Brenda in its parody of ''Film/TheVillage''.

* In ''Series/{{Cheers}}'' episode "[[Recap/CheersS4E5 Diane's Nightmare]]", Diane dreams that Sam's boorishness has just been an [[ObfuscatingStupidity act]] for the bar patrons; he's actually cultured and erudite. As he plays her a classical piano piece of his own composition, she embraces him and says, "Forget the piano. Let me be the instrument you play on." Sam's response: "Diane, do you realize you just ended that proposition... with a preposition?" This is a RunningGag between those two, first used in "[[Recap/CheersS1E3 The Tortelli Tort]]". When Ed threatens to sue the bar over Carla assaulting him, Sam tries to convince him that Carla is getting therapy for her anger problems:

* Shows up in this ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship'' [[http://pbfcomics.com/99/ strip.]]

-->"Do you think I'm some sort of idiot? Did you think I wouldn't notice? It's ''with whom I live''!"[[note]]Notice that the objective "who" instead of the subjective "whom" is another, and more genuine, mistake in English, albeit still one that only the stuffiest teachers would care about.[[/note]]

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': Miss Brooks more than once corrects herself after ending a sentence with a preposition. Or others. One example is found in the episode "Heat Wave", when Stretch Snodgrass pretended to faint on a hot day. Miss Brooks unbuttons his collar, which had concealed the OldTimeyBathingSuit. He, and the other students, are trying to trick Miss Brooks into releasing class so they can go to the swimming hole at Phillip's Farm.

* * ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': Miss Brooks more than once corrects herself after ending a sentence with a preposition. Or others. One example is found in the episode "Heat Wave", when Stretch Snodgrass pretended to faint on a hot day. Miss Brooks unbuttons his collar, which had concealed the OldTimeyBathingSuit. He, and the other students, are trying to trick Miss Brooks into releasing class so they can go to the swimming hole at Phillip's Farm.

-->-- [[AuthorsOfQuote Attributed]] to '''UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill''', on being criticized for this.[[note]]A more commonly missed joke is that the speaker thought that "up" was used here as a preposition, so he erroneously put it in front of "which".[[/note]]

* ''With Honors'':
** A homeless man attending a class at Harvard (long story) gets in an argument with the Professor. So when he wants to leave, this exchange happens:

A more concrete source of this grammar superstition is an English grammarian named Robert Lowth, who actually discussed, in his grammar, separating prepositions from the relative that they govern. He said that it was an idiom "which our language is strongly inclined to" and fit the "familiar style" but did not fit the "solemn and elevated style". In other words, his critique of this was based upon ''style'', not ''grammar''. Unfortunately, some teachers and grammarians probably misinterpreted this as an absolute rule, whence came the superstition.

[[quoteright:350:[[Webcomic/ThePerryBibleFellowship https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_1rsz_pbf099.png]]]]

One oft-claimed source of this is some overzealous grammarians' attempts to apply Latin grammar rules to English, and while some of those can actually apply in the latter language (like no double negatives), this one doesn't (same with splitting infinitives, which is ''impossible'' in Latin). Many sentences just don't flow in English if this rule is shoehorned in, and evidence has been shown that ending sentences with prepositions has been in the language since Anglo-Saxon. Some grammarians analyzed other languages, even quite unrelated languages such as Irish or Scottish Gaelic, with models based upon Latin grammar, to various degrees of success and correctness.

[[quoteright:218:[[ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/up_i_hicc.png]]]]