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Andrei
A Preposition in a Question I was taught to put prepositions that connect to question words at the end of questions. Like this: "Where are you from?", "What are you thinking about?", etc. Prepositions "from" and "about" are at the end of sentences here. It is not correct to say: "From where are you?", About what are you thinking?", right? I just saw a question that has been asked by a native English speaker on a computer graphics forum: "What are you trying to render and in what real environment are you trying to composite it?" I'm puzzled with position of a preposition "in" here. Isn't it supposed to be after words "...to composite it"? Thank you.
Sep 19, 2016 6:04 PM
Answers · 7
2
Where are you from?", "What are you thinking about?", etc. These are very simple sentences. The preposition won't get "lost." "What are you trying to render and in what real environment are you trying to composite it?" We say "in what," so the preposition won't get lost after everything else. What are you trying to render and what real environment are you trying to composite it in? - You could say this, too. People will understand you, but the preposition is so far away from the subject it is connected to, that it gets "lost."
September 19, 2016
1
"Where are you from?", "What are you thinking about?" are correct and natural. (However, there is a bizarre "grammar myth" that prohibits putting a preposition at the end of a sentence. I don't think any authority within the last hundred years has _ever_ supported that myth, but it persists). ""From where are you?" and "About what are you thinking?" are perfectly correct, although the word order is unusual. This word order suggests either that a) the writer is trying to put emphasis on "from where" and "about what," or that b) the writer is a pedant who believes the silly myth, and is trying to avoid putting a preposition at the end of a sentence, or that c) the writer is worried that his work will be graded or corrected by a pedant who believes the myth. A quick search turns up a few examples of the proposition at the beginning: "'From where do you come?' asked the king."--O. Henry, "The Right Branch" "From whence do these papers come, you say? That is the great question."--Dickens, "Bleak House"
September 19, 2016
When you learn something like a foreign language you can misunderstand some things and follow a wrong way after that. Apparently, that happened with me when I learned places of prepositions in sentences. I was completely sure that there is a strict rule always to put a preposition at the end of a question. Thank you guys for explaining me that point.
September 20, 2016
There's a well known joke: A lower class person meets an upper class person and asks "Where are you from?" The upper class person answers "I'm from a place where we know better than to end sentences with prepositions." The lower class person responds "Oh then, where are you from, jerk?" ------- In simple sentences, I'll tend to put the preposition at the end of the sentence. In more complex sentences, I'm more likely to pull the preposition into the middle of the sentence. Neither is actually incorrect.
September 19, 2016
The question is correct as written. I can't explain the grammatical reason why but it is correct.
September 19, 2016
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