Merriam-Webster Says You Can Now End Sentences With Prepositions And People Have Thoughts

If you are a grammar stickler, you are going to have a big problem with this proclamation.

You know how you have always been taught that you shouldn’t — under any circumstances — end a sentence with a preposition?

Words like “to, with, about, upon, for, off, on, under, or of.”

I mean, this has been a pretty standard rule for upwards of three centuries!!

Yeah. This rule doesn’t exist anymore.

Don’t shoot the messenger. This announcement comes straight from Merriam-Webster.

Apparently it is an archaic rule that comes from people wanting to make the sentence align more with the Latin language.

Now, I’m going to be honest. This new rule just grates on my nerves. It seems wrong on so many levels.

But, the times they are a changing — and we must change with them, I suppose.

There are many people who are fighting back on this new rule of using a preposition to end a sentence.

People think it sounds super weird — which it does — or they think it is lazy writing.

How about a little context. Ending with a preposition is okay in informal writing and speech. However, according to Grammarly, one should not end a sentence with a preposition for such situations as “academic writing like research papers or argumentative essays, as well as business writing like cover letters, work emails, or reports.”
fredjrandfriends

There are other people who are tongue-in-cheek about the whole thing.

Individuals who think it’s awkward to end sentences with prepositions are the kinds of people up with which I have never been able to put.
aconnersimons

But, as an English major, this Instagram user pretty sums up how I feel about it.