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strunk and white can wait




>In the last 11 or 12
>years, I've never heard of a dangling verb.

But 13 years ago you did?  ;)

You're right.  I was thinking that I shouldn't use "is" at the end of the
sentence, not that I should't use *any* verb at the end of a sentence. 
As you say, this is cos it's an awkward sounding construction.  

>>>Yes, this can be an awkward sentence construction
sometimes, and clarity would demand a rewrite,
but there's nothing wrong with it.<<<

But if it's awkward, isn't there something wrong with it?  Isn't clarity
the goal?  (Again, said with a smile: I'm just torturing your rhetoric
because I couldn't find a perscriptive rule[r] to back me up.)  (Up with
which to back me.)

Have I mentioned before that the rules against splitting infiinitives and
against dangling prepositions are nonsense based on the work of a buncha
18th cetury grammarians who decided that the rules of Latin shouuld apply
to every language?  It is *literally* impossible to split infinitives and
dangle prepositions in Latin.  In English, though, it ought to be
"legal."  But English-teacher types spent 200 years telling everyone it's
wrong to break these Latin grammar rules, so we're stuck with nonsense. 
We can't get a convincing corrective memo out to everyone in the world
reading a resume.

But enough of grammar.

Lots of people on this list write real good.  :)

fred
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