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Teaching Tips May 1, 2009 |
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by Ruth Beechick 
Peter and other institutionalized boys were in a carriage on their way to board a ship that would take
them “away.” The story continues with these details. (see footnote 1 below)
“Is that it?” Peter asked. “The ship we’re going on?” He ducked then, avoiding the hamlike right fist of Edward Grempkin. He was always keenly aware of where this fist was; he’d been dodging it for seven years now. Grempkin…paid little attention to whose ear his fist actually landed on; all the boys were rule-breakers, as far as he was concerned. This time the fist clipped an ear belonging to a boy named Thomas, who had been slumped, half asleep, in the carriage next to the ducking Peter. “OW!” said Thomas. Do not end a sentence with a preposition,” said Mr. Grempkin. He was also the grammar teacher at St. Norbert’s. “But I didn’t…OW!” said Thomas, upon being cuffed a second time by Grempkin, who had a strict rule against back-talk. For a moment, the carriage was silent, except for the bumpety-bump. Then Peter tried again. “Sir,” he said, “is that our ship?” He kept an eye on the fist, in case ship turned out to be a preposition. Do you “cuff’ your children with a red pencil if they write or say, “Where did this come from?” or “Who is this money for?” We arrived at this place in history because the first writers of English grammar books used Latin grammar as their model. But English is not like Latin. In Latin, the prepositions are attached to the words—at the front end like inlaid or upstairs. The name itself means pre-position. Thus in Latin, one could not possibly place the preposition at the end of a sentence, and from that arose the myth that we should not do so in English either. Knowing this history, you can ignore the Latin-style grammar books and join Winston Churchill, whose real quotation is, “This is the kind of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.” That frees you to use English as good writers use it. Do you recognize any of these sentences? Your mother will want to know where they came from. He found there was hardly any voice to say it with. What could the boy be crying for? The first two came from Railway Children by Edith Nesbit. The third is from Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. Footnotes: 1. Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry 2004 (Hyperion).
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