How tedious this has all become.  Nevertheless, this is an argument I will
not back away from.

(I advise busy students to hit their "Delete" buttons now.  Though it does,
at end, have a lot to do with museums.)

1) My apologies for jumping to conclusions about Tongariki's gender.  I
thought I recalled an earlier post which had given the game away.  Please
forgive my blunder.

2)  Grammar flows from language, not the other way 'round.  My admiration
for Strunk, White, and other codifiers of grammar is always tempered by
their regrettable tendency to disregard the way people actually use language
to communicate.

3)  That said...

US Government Manual of Style -- I could find no mention of prepositional
endings

University of Chicago Manual of Style -- I could find no mention

Council of Biology Editors Handbook -- I could find no mention

The Elements of Style (Strunk and White) -- I couldn't find my copy.  (They
must have pissed me off one time too many and ended up in a garage sale.)

Compact Handbook of College Composition (Brennan) -- no direct mention, but
uses a sentence ending with the word "after" as an example of proper usage.

Harbrace College Handbook, 7th Edition (Hodges & Whitten) -- "The
preposition may follow rather than precede its object, and it may be placed
at the end of the sentence."

Fowler's Moern English Usage, 2nd Edition (Gowers) -- a lengthy,
three-column defense of the practice, citing examples from Chaucer,
Shakespeare, Milton, the King James Bible, Kipling, and many others.  "The
fact is that the remarkable freedom enjoyed by English in putting its
prepositions late...is an important element of the flexibility of the
language."  "The legitimacy of the prepositional ending in literary English
must be uncompromisinly maintained."  "Follow no arbitrary rule...If the
final preposition that has naturally presented itself sounds comfortable,
keep it."

The Dictionary of Misinformation (Brennan) -- "There is no such 'rule'."

3)  Now, what has all this to do with museum practice?  Simply put: we are
all in the communication business, and we need to learn to do it better.  I
believe Orwell said it best: "Break any rule before writing an abominable
sentence."  Museum interpretive text has long had a reputation for
abomination, both in exhibit labels and publications. We lose our audience
-- and thus fail to do our jobs -- when we write inelegant, unclear
sentences.  (As the author of numerous abominations, I know.)

It is true, one may have a career as a profssional museum writer while
remaining ignorant of all rules, real and imagined.  But that career with be
nasty, brutish, and very, *very* short, if one insists on producing text
which emphasizes style over clarity and meaning.


Now, let's all have a lively debate about "alright," shall we?  :)  KIDDING!!





At 02:52  4/15/97 GMT, you wrote:
>Because Americans speak a creole of English they find real English
>disconcerting, even insulting.  This makes the "English as the Official
>Language" goons take on an amusing veneer of irony in spite of their
>elitest pretensions.  And yes, professionals do follow rules, Strunk and
>White have codified it neatly as have various manuals of style.  All
>graduates of primary school are supposed to have learned the basics and
>not ending sentences with prepositions is one of these basics.  Because
>one can have a career, even a career as a writer, although one may violate
>this basic rule doesn't change the rule.   P. S. My computer name does not
>reveal anything about gender whatsoever.  I find your assumptions about my
>gender very entertaining.
>
>



Eugene Dillenburg
Geology Department
The Field Museum                                FAX: 312-922-9566
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Dr.                phone: 312-922-9410 ext. 293
Chicago, Illinois  60605

"It's not really food if it doesn't hurt."

                                        -- Bruce Elliott