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Which one of the following is correct?

I can give you nothing else other than what you've asked.

or

I can give you nothing else other than what you've asked for.

Is it okay to use for at the end of a sentence?

KillingTime
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John david
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    "To" is not a preposition in "Yes, I want to". It's a subordinator, as in "Yes I want to go", except that "go" is ellided. – BillJ Jul 10 '22 at 18:26
  • Scenario: A child's father has come upstairs to read a book to him, but the father accidentally brought the wrong book. In response, the bratty child says, “What did you bring this book that I don’t want to be read aloud to out of up for?” (Attributed to E. B. White) – zunojeef Jul 10 '22 at 20:53

2 Answers2

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It's always been natural in English to end sentences with prepositions, apart from a few hundred years of aberration when somebody (possibly John Dryden) made up a rule that you shouldn't. See here.

There are still people who hold onto this nonsense, so if you care about upsetting them, you shouldn't do it. The rest of us will carry on speaking English.

(Like most rules of fashion etiquette prescriptive grammar, it was essential that the rule be awkward, difficult, or nonsensical, because otherwise it wouldn't perform its primary sociological role of allowing the Right Kind of People to tell whether or not you were One Of Them.)

Colin Fine
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It all depends on what it’s for.

(Which should answer part of the question.)

In this case it’s for “ask for”, not “ask”. Compare:

“…the question I asked.”

“…the book I asked for.”

Of course, we elitists say:

“…the book for which I asked.”

Try it on your friends.

David
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