Meaning of "on which to look back on"

Question

New experiences can create new memories and reflections on which to look back on.

I find it difficult to understand and parse "on which to look back on". I am confused as to why there are two "on"s. What does it mean?

More examples can be obtained via googling "on which to look back on".

What does it mean? It means that the speaker/writer has made a mistake. Only one of the "ons" is necessary. — Greybeard, Apr 13 '23 at 10:39
@Araucaria-Nothereanymore. :) I was hoping the OP would make the better choice, although the sentence as a whole is poorly constructed. — Greybeard, Apr 13 '23 at 10:49
this is indeed difficult but thanks for asking it, something similar I had wanted to ask/ or also thought about. ALSO @thatness Welcome to EnglishStackExchange! — William Martens, Apr 13 '23 at 10:52
Greybeard is correct; only one "on" is needed. Either delete the last "on" or delete the initial "on which" — Anton, Apr 13 '23 at 12:15
maybe something old-english can be used? (note I don't know what this could be but some times maybe a latin word?) Note I don't know at all *which is why the comment and not an answer. — William Martens, Apr 13 '23 at 19:46
You can either strand the preposition at the end or pied-pipe it along with the relative which, but you can't do both. Pied-piping will get you in trouble if you forget to delete the preposition at the end that you pied-piped to the front. — John Lawler, Apr 13 '23 at 22:36

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 13 '23 at 16:11

1

Answer. This question is ungrammatical. It makes no sense. When the preposition is fronted, the clause of interest should have its preposition removed. It’s either a typo or written by someone that is unlearned.

answered Apr 13 '23 at 16:11

John

26

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 13 '23 at 19:42

You have too many ons, but you can’t remove the last one; look back on is a phrasal prepositional verb — with a verb, an adverb particle, and a preposition. The particle and the preposition cannot be separated.

These are incorrect:

*New experiences can create new memories and reflections on which to look back.

*Working from home creates new challenges with which to put up.

You’ll need to remove on which:

New experiences can create new memories and reflections to look back on.

Working from home creates new challenges to put up with.

Meaning of "on which to look back on"

2 Answers2