It was taught in grade school and hammered home every time a book report, term paper or thesis was assigned. English teachers made it their cardinal rule.
For those of us who write professionally, it was an egregious error punishable by confiscation of our laptops. I’m talking about ending a sentence with a preposition. My fifth grade teacher, Miss Rosilia, would underline it in big red ink on my compositions, right next to her letter grade of “F.”
Prepositions
In case you need a refresher course, a preposition is a small word that indicates a relationship between other words or phrases in the sentence. Examples include words such as “from,” “about,” “at,” “of” and “with.” Since childhood, we’ve been instructed that those words always belong in the middle of a sentence and never, ever at the end of one.
The problem is, we tend to write the way we talk. Our speech is loaded with violations: Where are you at? Where did this come from? That’s what I’m thinking of. Here’s what it’s all about.
In fact, ending with a preposition has become so common that dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, the self-appointed guardian of our lexicon, has raised up the white flag of surrender. They shocked the grammar world recently with a social media post stating that ending a sentence with a preposition is now okay.
Furthermore, they say there is not — nor has there ever been — an actual rule against it. Everybody’s doing it, so it has become acceptable in the same way new terms such as “selfie” and “staycation” became actual words because everybody was using them anyway.
Never changing
As a writer I find this comforting. As a Christian I’m not so sure. Aren’t you glad the Bible doesn’t bow to popular opinion and that God’s rules don’t change just because the culture deems it fashionable to disobey them? Surveys tell us more and more people are moving on from concepts such as Jesus, salvation, heaven, hell and prayer.
But that doesn’t make them any less real. Hebrews 13:8 boldly declares, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.”
With permission from Merriam-Webster, I can fearlessly write that heaven is still where it’s at. Hell is what I’m afraid of. Salvation is what it’s all about. Jesus is the One I seek to be with. And sin is what I want to escape from.
Miss Rosilia must be rolling in her grave.
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