Dear Mr. Lederer: Last week I was going to send you an email regarding the ending of a sentence with a preposition. And then your column appeared with the headline “Readers submit snappy sniglets to snicker at”! According to Grammarmaster. com: Prepositions are important when constructing sentences. A preposition sits before a noun to show the noun’s relationship to another word in the sentence. I know that many have accepted the placement of prepositions at the end of a sentence, but is it proper? It’s just another of my pet peeves that I like to worry about (terminal preposition intended). — Bonnie J. Daigh, Poway
I am indeed the proud author of the U-T headline “Readers submit snappy sniglets to snicker at” and, more recently “Halloween word prey you can sink your teeth into.” Would you have had me write, “Readers submit snappy sniglets at which to snicker”? Or “Halloween word prey into which you can sink your teeth”? Au contraire. That’s not the way people speak and write.
Your jocular sentence “It’s just another of my pet peeves that I like to worry about” is perfectly natural and “proper” English. “It’s just another of my pet peeves about which I like to worry” is a contorted bow before a stiff mandarin code of correctness that has no foundation in reality.
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Hi, Dr. Verbivore!: I’m writing because I have a question about punctuation that I hope you can answer. Very often we see statements like these: Go Padres! Go Chargers!
My question is, why isn’t there a comma after Go? It’s a direct address! Surely people know that rule of punctuation! I can’t make myself leave it out, because I firmly believe it belongs there, but sometimes I think I may be the only person left on this earth who uses a comma in this case. Would you? I’d really appreciate your help. — Rickie Sevadjian, Point Loma
Greetings, Rickie Sevadjian: The comma before the second person direct address in “Go, Padres!” and “Go, Chargers!” is the same one that’s in our salutations: “Hi, Dr. Verbivore!” and “Greetings, Rickie Sevadjian.” Despite the fact that there’s a clear pause before the vocative (second person), hardly anybody uses that comma. I urge all my readers to employ this seldom-used comma, first, because it reflects a natural pause in the voice and second, because it often avoids confusion, as in:
Which family is cannibalistic?:
Let’s eat Grandma.
Let’s eat, Grandma.
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Dear Mr. Lederer: I am wondering why a lot of people tack at onto the end of a sentence, as in “Where are you at?” instead of “Where are you?” Is this just in California? I am originally from Ohio, and it hurts my ears every time I hear it. — Diana Garrison, Santee
“Where are you at?” is not confined to California. This toxic mutation has polluted our entire nation. “Where are you at?” is an atrocity not because of its terminal preposition, which, as I state above, is not an automatic no-no. It’s clunky and klutzy because the at is completely unnecessary. “Where are you?” will do just fine.
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Dear Mr. Lederer: Armed with my 8th-grade education and an English teacher mother, I say, “I wish I were there.” Armed with her college degree and an English teacher mother, my wife says, “I wish I was there.” Which is correct? — Dave Foley, San Diego
The verb in your sentence should be cast in the subjunctive, not the indicative, mood. Subjunctives express ideas that are contrary to fact, conditional, hypothetical or wishful. Your statement is a wish, and wishes require subjunctive verbs, as in “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener./That is what I’d truly like to be,/And if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener,/Everyone would be in love with me!” Thus, the proper form is “I wish I were (not was) there.”
May you enjoy sleeping on the couch tonight, Dave.
Please send your questions and comments about language to richard.lederer@utsandiego.com