Place names you got wrong

[paulthemapguy]

If you can't end a sentence with a preposition, what are you supposed to end it with?

With what are you supposed to end it?**

The restructuring of prepositional phrases to "[object] [preposition] which/whom [subject] [verb]" helps a lot.

"Thing I'm proud of" becomes "thing of which I'm proud"
"Person I was golfing with" becomes "person with whom I was golfing"
"Place he came from" becomes "place from which he came"

That's the secret to avoiding the ending of a sentence with a preposition!

Back on track, when I was a small child I used to think Montana had an extra syllable so it sounded like "Panama". I called it "Montanana."

I refuse to put emphasis on the second syllable of "Charlotte," Michigan.

[kphoger]

That's the secret to avoiding the ending of a sentence with a preposition!

But why would a person avoid ending a sentence with a preposition in the first place?

The supposed rule has been erroneous since its first popularization centuries ago.  The assumption by most grammarians is that those who thought the practice erroneous all those years ago were trying to harmonize English sentence structure with that of Latin–and, because Latin sentences would make no syntactical sense with a terminal preposition (veritas vino in), they insisted that English sentences shouldn't have terminal prepositions either.

Forcing English to abide by the rules of Latin is ridiculous on the face of it, and it is the type of arrant pedantry up with which one ought not put.

[CtrlAltDel]

That's the secret to avoiding the ending of a sentence with a preposition!

But why would a person avoid ending a sentence with a preposition in the first place?

The supposed rule has been erroneous since its first popularization centuries ago.  The assumption by most grammarians is that those who thought the practice erroneous all those years ago were trying to harmonize English sentence structure with that of Latin–and, because Latin sentences would make no syntactical sense with a terminal preposition (veritas vino in), they insisted that English sentences shouldn't have terminal prepositions either.

Forcing English to abide by the rules of Latin is ridiculous on the face of it, and it is the type of arrant pedantry up with which one ought not put.

Just out of idle curiosity, how does it work in Spanish? French doesn't allow separating prepositions from their objects any more than Latin did and makes use of an equivalent to the "with which," "for which," "among which," structure, except for "of which" which has its own specific word.

[CtrlAltDel]

I refuse to put emphasis on the second syllable of "Charlotte," Michigan.

Elizabethton TN puts its stress on the BETH.

[kphoger]

Just out of idle curiosity, how does it work in Spanish? French doesn't allow separating prepositions from their objects any more than Latin did and makes use of an equivalent to the "with which," "for which," "among which," structure, except for "of which" which has its own specific word.

I don't speak French, but my impression is that many grammatical rules are similar.  Just as a terminal preposition would make no sense in Latin, it would make no sense in Spanish either.

Which store are you going to?
¿A qué tienda vas?

Who was he with?
¿Con quién estaba?

She isn't the one I was speaking with.
Ella no es con quien estaba platicando.

Who should I toss it to?
¿A quién debo tirarla?

I don't know what country it's in.
No sé en qué país está.

[index]

I refuse to put emphasis on the second syllable of "Charlotte," Michigan.

Elizabethton TN puts its stress on the BETH.

Keeping with the topic of "Place names you got wrong", a lot of people not familiar with the town over the phone will ask me "is that ElizabethTOWN?" or "did you mean ElizabethTOWN?" when I say where I live. That or they just go ahead and assume I meant "Elizabethtown" and will fill out forms as such, which I always end up having to correct later on. Nope. There is no Elizabethtown in Tennessee. Only an ElizaBETHton.

[Scott5114]

If you can't end a sentence with a preposition, what are you supposed to end it with?

With what are you supposed to end it?**

The restructuring of prepositional phrases to "[object] [preposition] which/whom [subject] [verb]" helps a lot.

"Thing I'm proud of" becomes "thing of which I'm proud"
"Person I was golfing with" becomes "person with whom I was golfing"
"Place he came from" becomes "place from which he came"

That's the secret to avoiding the ending of a sentence with a preposition!

If I inadvertently wrote a sentence like one of these examples, I would probably choose to revise it, because the examples come off as clunkily-worded. Most of these add extra words like "which" that don't impart any actual meaning, they only serve a mechanical purpose.

Additionally, in a lot of these examples, the preposition itself doesn't really impart a whole lot of meaning and is there just to make the sentence logically complete: you could probably understand the intended meaning of "Joe is the person I was golfing", it's just that the verb golf doesn't normally take a sentient entity as its object (i.e. you can't actually do golf upon a person), so you have to stick a preposition in there as a dummy word to fill in the slot to make it logically complete. As a result there are a whole lot of prepositions you can stick in that slot and make the sentence convey the same meaning, with the choice only mattering as to what aspect of the event you want emphasize (Joe is the person I was golfing [against, with, beside, alongside, near, by ...]).

Given that it is not really all that critical to the meaning of the sentence, it makes sense to put the meat of the sentence's meaning up front and then the preposition at the end, where the brain already has the context parsed and then this is an added bit of detail. Putting the preposition in the middle of the sentence, before the meaning of the sentence is fully parsed, makes it harder to follow, because you don't have the context for what the preposition is modifying, and the brain is saying "get to the point, already!"

[jeffandnicole]

If you can't end a sentence with a preposition, what are you supposed to end it with?

With what are you supposed to end it?**

The restructuring of prepositional phrases to "[object] [preposition] which/whom [subject] [verb]" helps a lot.

"Thing I'm proud of" becomes "thing of which I'm proud"
"Person I was golfing with" becomes "person with whom I was golfing"
"Place he came from" becomes "place from which he came"

That's the secret to avoiding the ending of a sentence with a preposition!

If I inadvertently wrote a sentence like one of these examples, I would probably choose to revise it, because the examples come off as clunkily-worded. Most of these add extra words like "which" that don't impart any actual meaning, they only serve a mechanical purpose.

Additionally, in a lot of these examples, the preposition itself doesn't really impart a whole lot of meaning and is there just to make the sentence logically complete: you could probably understand the intended meaning of "Joe is the person I was golfing", it's just that the verb golf doesn't normally take a sentient entity as its object (i.e. you can't actually do golf upon a person), so you have to stick a preposition in there as a dummy word to fill in the slot to make it logically complete. As a result there are a whole lot of prepositions you can stick in that slot and make the sentence convey the same meaning, with the choice only mattering as to what aspect of the event you want emphasize (Joe is the person I was golfing [against, with, beside, alongside, near, by ...]).

Given that it is not really all that critical to the meaning of the sentence, it makes sense to put the meat of the sentence's meaning up front and then the preposition at the end, where the brain already has the context parsed and then this is an added bit of detail. Putting the preposition in the middle of the sentence, before the meaning of the sentence is fully parsed, makes it harder to follow, because you don't have the context for what the preposition is modifying, and the brain is saying "get to the point, already!"

Not ending a sentence with a preposition was something drilled into my head as a youngster by my mom...which I largely have ignored.  I'll try to rephrase a sentence sometimes to avoid it because in the written sense it does look a little off, but speaking-wise, it often just rolls off the tongue better using the prep at the end.

[mhh]

Speaking about the rule prohibiting the ending of sentences with prepositions, Winston Churchill reportedly said "That is a rule up with which I will not put."

[kphoger]

Additionally, in a lot of these examples, the preposition itself doesn't really impart a whole lot of meaning and is there just to make the sentence logically complete: you could probably understand the intended meaning of "Joe is the person I was golfing", it's just that the verb golf doesn't normally take a sentient entity as its object (i.e. you can't actually do golf upon a person), so you have to stick a preposition in there as a dummy word to fill in the slot to make it logically complete. As a result there are a whole lot of prepositions you can stick in that slot and make the sentence convey the same meaning, with the choice only mattering as to what aspect of the event you want emphasize (Joe is the person I was golfing [against, with, beside, alongside, near, by ...]).

Joe is the person I was golfing at. 

[kphoger]

This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.

Forcing English to abide by the rules of Latin is ridiculous on the face of it, and it is the type of arrant pedantry up with which one ought not put.

Speaking about the rule prohibiting the ending of sentences with prepositions, Winston Churchill reportedly said "That is a rule up with which I will not put."

you don't say

[GaryV]

Tucson. I didn't know that the C was not pronounced.

[Poiponen13]

Is the K not pronounced in Knoxville? I have expected that it is not. The Wikipedia article does not mention pronunciation.

[MATraveler128]

Is the K not pronounced in Knoxville? I have expected that it is not. The Wikipedia article does not mention pronunciation.

The K is silent in Knoxville yes as it is in Knox County where it's located.

[formulanone]

Is the K not pronounced in Knoxville? I have expected that it is not. The Wikipedia article does not mention pronunciation.

The K is silent in Knoxville yes as it is in Knox County where it's located.

In American English, the "k" is almost always silent when followed by "n", if the pair are the first two letters of a word.

When it comes to place names, all bets are off on pronunciation (though /nox-vil/ is correct).

[Rothman]

Is the K not pronounced in Knoxville? I have expected that it is not. The Wikipedia article does not mention pronunciation.

The K is silent in Knoxville yes as it is in Knox County where it's located.

In American English, the "k" is almost always silent when followed by "n", if the pair are the first two letters of a word.

When it comes to place names, all bets are off on pronunciation (though /nox-vil/ is correct).

Knoebels!

[Big John]

Knute Rockne pronounced the :K".

[formulanone]

and most proper names, stop interrupting the class

[Poiponen13]

And Louisville is pronounced /lu@v@l/ (the @ sign stands for schwa, like sound "a" in "about"). This means that "s" is silent.

[Rothman]

And Louisville is pronounced /lu@v@l/ (the @ sign stands for schwa, like sound "a" in "about"). This means that "s" is silent.

The actual way to grunt the name is debated.  Still, never "Looey-ville."

[Poiponen13]

And Louisville is pronounced /lu@v@l/ (the @ sign stands for schwa, like sound "a" in "about"). This means that "s" is silent.

The actual way to grunt the name is debated.  Still, never "Looey-ville."

Or "Looeys-ville".

[1995hoo]

The one I've always found a little odd is Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, which is pronounced as "Lewisburg." I assume that comes from the Anglophone population having a negative reaction to French names after the Seven Years' War.

[GaryV]

^ It comes from the general British (which carried over to Canadian but not American) pronunciations of French words.

When you get a piece of fish, it's a "fil-lit" not a "fil-lay".

Of course the US has it's own bastardizations of French name and word pronunciations - and French isn't the only language we butcher, just look at names that came from Native people's languages.

[Poiponen13]

I just found out that Clermont-Ferrand, a major city in southern France, isn't Clermont-Ferrard.

[Poiponen13]

I found out that S is pronounced in Saint Louis (city), unlike in Louisville.