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In high school I was taught that it is not proper grammar to end a sentence with a preposition. My instructor was very strict about grammar on every paper we wrote. He always said to not end a sentence with a preposition and showed the ways to not do this. Is this different now with modern English as opposed to the English I was taught in high school?

C K GM
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  • Welcome to English Language & Usage. You need to show some research of your own. This could be a good question if you looked up terms and establish by citation what those terms mean. Thanks. – J. Taylor Oct 27 '17 at 06:42
  • Modern English includes standard written English and standard spoken English, with greater informality in spoken English and, depending on the context, various divergences from "standard" in incorporating slang, local dialectic vocabulary and expressions, and so forth. Some of the grammar you originally learned has probably been made more flexibile since you took the lessons, but the lessons will serve you well--or most of them will. – Xanne Oct 27 '17 at 07:02
  • Modern English includes modern formal English. The kind of English in which it is somehow forbidden to end sentences with a preposition is neither modern nor formal. That form of English has never really been spoken by any native speaker and only existed in the minds of prescriptionists who couldn't tell English from Latin, and the nightmares of generations of poor schoolkids learning a language nobody spoke. – oerkelens Oct 27 '17 at 12:03

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Well "formal English" is just a product of prescriptivist grammar. By "modern English" I assume you mean the language as it is currently spoken, which inherently doesn't adhere to any prescriptivism. In that way, yes, there is a difference, but that difference is just a set of arbitrary rules applied to the language.

That specific rule was applied to English from Latin and doesn't really have any basis in (non-prescriptivist) English grammar. English speakers have been ending sentences with prepositions for centuries; it's nothing particularly modern.

Source: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/11/grammar-myths-prepositions/

Nolan
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