This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

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rvernon

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May 6, 2008, 3:58:46 PM5/6/08
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No matter how many times you read over your edit, there are those
times when it is inevitable—you submit your draft, and it is returned
by a smirking coworker with advice spoken just a little too loudly.
“I before E, except after C” or “You forgot to bold one word at the
bottom of page 168.” Or, even worse, a Reply to All with those
helpful words “can means that you’re physically able to.”

It is the bane of all technical writers—you edit someone else’s
grammar, and you look like a know-it-all. Others correct your work and
act as though they have earned an award.

Usually, I am able to shrug it off. I make the change if it is valid
or quietly shelf the helpful suggestions. There is just one edit that
infuriates me: “You can’t end a sentence with a preposition.”

Thanks to the careful training of teachers and college professors, I
am always fully conscious of the position of my prepositions. I am
even wary of adverbs that can be misconstrued as prepositions. But my
days as a student are far enough in my past that I no longer feel like
a rebel when I find that the most comprehensible phrasing places the
preposition at the end.

But sometimes I integrate the preposition or even avoid certain
adverbs to avoid confrontation.

How do you feel about prepositions at the end of sentences?

Jonny

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May 6, 2008, 4:32:31 PM5/6/08
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Let me try this again.

If it's easy to fix and doesn't make the sentence sound awkwad, I'll
make
the change. Otherwise, I leave it be. I feel it's more important that
the
content be comfortable for a reader than technically correct.
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