[OT] Piling of prepositions (was: Namespaces in functions vs classes)

Tue Apr 19 23:59:02 EDT 2011

On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 7:49 PM, Dave Angel <davea at ieee.org> wrote:
> On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Ben Finney wrote:
>>>> "Rhodri James"<rhodri at wildebst.demon.co.uk>  writes:
>>>>> Language abuse: it's not just Python. A donation of just 5ドル will keep
>>> a programmer in prepositions for a month. 50ドル will supply enough
>>> articles to keep a small company understandable for over a year. With
>>> your generous help, we can beat this scourge!
>>>> I lately lost a preposition
>> It hid, I thought, beneath my chair
>> And angrily I cried, “Perdition!
>> Up from out of in under there.”
>>>> Correctness is my vade mecum,
>> And straggling phrases I abhor,
>> And yet I wondered, “What should he come
>> Up from out of in under for?”
>>>> —Morris Bishop, in the _New Yorker_, 1947年09月27日
>>>> <URL:http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/gowerse/complete/chap905.htm>
>>>> Ending a sentence with a preposition is one aberration up with which I will
> not put.
>> With is a lousy word to start or end a sentence with.
>>                 origins unknown

With respect to the first, it is (possibly mis)attributed to Winston
Churchill. The second I've heard but don't recall where from.
Geremy Condra