Quote:
Originally Posted by alwann
OLD JOKE.
"Where's it at?"'
"Don't be stupid. It's wrong to end a sentence with a preposition."
"OK then, where's it at, as---ole?"
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After decades as an English professor, I learned from a linguist at Columbia University a few months ago that it is in fact CORRECT in English to end a sentence with a preposition. The idea that we mustn’t do that is based on Latin grammar and was inflicted on us a couple centuries ago. However, in both Old English (as spoken and written in England until around 1200) and in Old Norse (spoken by the Vikings who ruled a large chunk of England for about 350 years), ending sentences with prepositions is grammatically correct. When I learned that, I felt liberated. After all, we are English speakers, not Latin speakers.
Still, “Where’s it at” is considered a colloquialism to be avoided, as it is more appropriate to simply ask, “Where is it?”