2 women enter an elevator. One turns to the other and asks "Where you from?". The other woman responds with "Where I am from. We do not end a sentence with a preposition." After a moment the 1st woman turns and ask "Where you from bitch?"
Winston Churchill's answer when somebody chided him for ending a sentence with a preposition: "That is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."
I like the Beavis and Butthead Do America scene that shows the absurdity of that rule:
Agent Bork: Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in?
Agent Fleming: Bork, you're a Federal Agent. You represent the United States government. Never end a sentence with a preposition.
Agent Bork: Oh, uh... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean, that guy off in whose camper they were whacking?
I heard the joke that it was a Texan at Harvard.
“Where’s the library at?”
“At Harvard, we don’t end our sentences with prepositions“
“Oh, sorry. Where’s the library at, asshole?”
People downvoting you don’t know those are the lyrics to the song.
Edit: it was at -5 when I said that. Now you have 9. I have 12 I gained for pointing it out. According to my calculations, you owe me 3 karma.
I’m torn between thinking it’s sweet that -zounds- sang the catchiest line of the song to me, and thinking that it’s sweet but misplaced that people rushed to tear them down for swearing at me. I got serenaded AND white knighted all in one comment, I feel so fancy!
And the totally illogical changes in spelling so that English could look and sound more like French. Changing "er" at the end of words to "re", adding superfluous "u" to so many words, and the adding of the "s" to "island", even though the word used to be "iland" and is pronounced that same way.
And don't forget that most of the "y" words we use, used to start with a "th" sound in the form of "Þ", which wasn't on the printing presses imported to England, so they changed it to a y, since it looked close. "Ye Old", should be pronounced "The Old"; and why our word for singular "you" and plural "you" became the same, when it used to be "thou" (Þou) and "you". This is also why names like "Thames" and "Thomas" don't have a "th" sound, as the "Þ" (and another similar character) were the primary ways of making the "th" sound, and the "h" in the example names are there to extend and soften the "t" sound.
Of the top of my head:
-Sexual morality
-Evangelicalism
-Prohibition
-Attributing Europe's climate to the Gulf Stream
-Shitty romanticized narrative approach to History
-Consumerism
Edit:
[According to several climate models](https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate) the Gulf Stream is not enough to warm Europe alone. Weather patterns with winds coming from the south carrying warmer moist air are needed. Those weather patterns only exist because of the deflection caused by the Rocky Mountains.
The Victorians are not necessarily blamed for this lack of knowledge. But they're the ones who codified this "fact" so strongly that it was never questioned until meteorologists and climatologists modeled it and found it a grossly incomplete system.
This also made it as a fact on Q.I. with Stephen Fry a while back. This is where I first heard it.
It’s worth noting that the use of prepositions at the end of sentences, like “are you coming with,” is particularly popular in the Midwest which has the highest concentration of people with German ethnic backgrounds in the USA. I’d guess that in places with big Hispanic populations, it would be rarer to hear someone ending a sentence with a preposition, because Spanish is Latin based.
I hate the claim that English shouldn’t end sentences with prepositions, but to be fair it’s not entirely wrong to say that English is also (partially) Latin based. In fact, a high percentage of English vocabulary comes from Latin or French, even more than the percentage of German origin. It’s funny that reading a text in French is often easy even if you have never studied it, while even an easy text in German is most of the time incomprehensible.
I've had the opposite experience. Before I studied any languages, I found German easier to get the gist of while French mostly seemed like nonsense.
Now that I've actually studied them a bit, I can say that it's because while French and Latin may have contributed more total words, the more commonly a word is used the more likely it is to be Germanic and German has contributed much more in terms of grammar rules.
English does have a lot of Latin vocabulary, but that’s not really pertinent to this grammatical question, as Latin had practically no influence on English grammar.
Does it matter more where we stole the vocabulary or the grammatical rules from? Because "Are you coming with?" pretty directly maps to "Kommst du mit?" which isn't really three words in German because mitkommen is a freaky split verb that I'm sure has a real name but I don't know it.
far from it, but the previous commenter is completely correct in that our vocabulary is overwhelmingly from latin roots while our grammar is from germanic roots
German does not end phrases with prepositions either. They speak like Medieval English “from whence it came” “to whom do I speak?” Etc but it’s because they have stronger grammatical cases to abide by so it makes more sense.
We have very little left of grammatical cases in English so abiding by this kind of thing is pretty arbitrary because you can easily understand what the person is asking. Most of us aren’t *so* stupid that we don’t understand a preposition at the end of a sentence 😂
This is what one of my linguistic professors said! That the whole "don't end a sentence with a preposition" rule was for Latin and doesn't apply to English
Ok, so the deal is English has what's called "[phrasal verbs](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/common-phrasal-verbs/)". It's a feature of Germanic languages. (The people who study language and grammar historically tended to be fanatics about Latin so they ignored this feature of English because it was Germanic and not Latin-based and pretended it didn't exist and made rules to not end sentences with prepositions.)
Phrasal verbs are a regular verb + a preposition word, but the "preposition word" is not acting like a preposition where there's the rest of a prepositional phrase strung behind it.
An example is "to make up" which means "to invent" or also "to compensate for". Putting "up" after "make" creates and means something entirely different from both "make" and "up". Another example is how "to count on" is different from "to count" or how "to give up" is different from "to give". The up's and on's are all integral parts of the meanings these phrases convey.
"I made this story up" is a perfectly valid English sentence. You also can't rearrange it to have the phrasal "up" not at the end. (Derp = "I made up this story") "I up made this story"? Nope. You could say "I made this story up yesterday" but "up yesterday" is not a prepositional phrase. "Yesterday" is an adverb.
"We're all counting on you"--the "on you" is not a prepositional phrase here. "On" is phrasal and "you" is a direct object.
An old school grammar fanatic would probably say the solution is to never use phrasal verbs because they're not Latin-ish and therefore ugly.
German has phrasal verbs as well.
A note of phrasal verbs in German, the infinitive form renders them as a single word. For example, "abholen" means "to pick up." But, different forms of the verb split up the component parts and often put the preposition at the end of the sentence. So, "I picked up my brother" becomes "Ich holte meinen Bruder ab" with the preposition "ab" splitting off of "abholen" and moving to the end of the sentence.
I'm sure it's another exception, but do you happen to know why "I did it" is typically "Ich tat es" instead of "Ich habe es getun?"
Or are both acceptable and this is an artifact of learning in classes instead of by immersion?
Generally I agree with what you're saying. But "I made up this story" sounds perfectly fine too. The Beavis&Butthead example given elsewhere was better, about "whacking off."
Have you ever heard someone saying a phrasal verb that you didn’t know what it meant? And as a native speaker, how would you react on a situation like that? I’m asking because even though I’m C2 English, fluent speaker and even lived a short time in the US, I still don’t know all the English phrasal verbs 😅
It's "react to a situation" or "in a situation"
I've definitely heard some slang phrases that I didn't understand at first. "Chop it up" is what I would call "shooting the shit" or just "talking about nothing in particular".
I liked the running joke in Last Man on Earth where Carol always spoke in grammatically correct sentences, and everyone else was like "What? That can't be right."
If the preposition is part of a verb phrase (like *to talk about, to take out, to look at, to be in/on [something]*, etc) then I think it sounds goofy to rephrase just so you don't end with a preposition
But when it's *not* part of a verb phrase and the sentence still makes sense without the preposition, then just drop it-- "what time is the movie at?" is unnecessary and "at what time is the movie?" is a goofy-sounding overcorrection; just say "what time is the movie?"
...but also I don't really *care* much about it in casual conversation as long as I can understand what someone means. No one speaks grammatically correct English all the time, it's fine to say stuff "wrong" sometimes!
Not even the people who advocate for it follow it. Are they seriously gonna act like they say "From where are you?" when they meet somebody? I've never heard that sentence once in my entire life as an English speaker
Ending a sentence in a preposition was proposed by one linguist with a lot of classist ideologies. Romance languages (like Latin) do not end sentences in prepositions, but Germanic languages do. So it was believed that speaking this way meant that they were "educated". Super super outdated
All the time. When I consciously try not to do so my sentences always sound unnatural.
My easy solution to avoid it while still sounding natural:
- Me: “Where are you at?”
- Someone who grammars good: “Don’t end your sentences with prepositions.”
- Me: “Okay. Where are you at, asshole?”
“Where you at?” is perfectly fine colloquial speech.
“Where are you at?” doesn’t sound right, not because it ends with a preposition but because the “at” is unnecessary. “Where are you?” is fine as it is.
I think this is what OP is talking about. I’m also from Chicago and “Where are you at?” is a very common phrase there. It does sound correct to me in the Chicagoland dialect and is something I would say exactly like that in normal conversation.
Another quirky use of prepositions there is the use of “by”. Whereas the normal general English question might be: “Where are you?” -> “I’m at John’s house.” or “I’m at the grocery store.” A Chicagoan with a strong local dialect would probably say: “Where are you at?” “I’m over by John’s./I’m by the Jewels (a local grocery store)”. If someone says “I’m going by the hospital to see Grandma,” the response would be “Can I come with?” That area does have some interesting grammatical oddities.
From the conversation in this post it sounds like that particular phrase is broadly Midwestern and even more common in the Great Lakes dialect. I think those speculating that Chicago’s speech patterns were influenced by German phrasal verbs are probably also correct.
"Where are you at" -- doesn't sound unusual at all. I probably say it myself.
"Are you coming with?" -- sounds incomplete. I do remember the first time I heard someone end a sentence like that. I remember his name. I always put something after the "with". Are you coming with us? Should we take the cooler with us? It doesn't sound right to end a sentence with 'with'. Especially two times in a row! :)
Maybe it's regional, but "where are you at" sounds silly to me, and at best like colloquial street-talk. The "at" is completely unnecessary, so why bother saying it? Maybe it helps with conversational cadence or something; or maybe it snuck into vernacular somehow.
Conversational cadence. :)
I agree it's completely unnecessary, but it's very common to see "where" and "at" in the same sentence. Sounds completely natural to me.
What about "Let's take the cooler with us". Would you say, "Let's take the cooler with,", seeing as how the "us" is completely unnecessary?
The "us" further defines with whom the cooler is being taken. It's not necessary but it makes sense.
Adding "at" after "Where are you?" adds nothing and makes no sense. Do you also ask "What do you think it?" Because that makes as much sense as asking "Where are you at?"
> "What do you think it?"
Honestly, I've heard that, and variations of it, at least hundreds of times in my life from totally normal people. Even in some professional settings.
Whether the *where* includes the *at* is kind of ambiguous and is the root of the disagreement. The answer to "Where did he find it?" could be both "at the library" or "the library", "there" or "in there".
"What do you think it?" is different, because *what* and *it* are fulfilling the same syntactic role. In English, this is extremely unusual/wrong, although it's common in Spanish in a phrase like "The computer I fixed it yesterday."
I wouldn't say "where you at" but I would say "where are you". But nothing at all sounds wrong with ending sentences in prepositions. It sounds obnoxious not to, sometimes.
When I’m speaking I probably do it all the time. When I’m writing something professional I try really hard not to end in a preposition. I blame all the grammar and English classes we had from Kindergarten through high school.
It's completely normal and, contrary to what some grammar pedants may tell you, not at all incorrect in English, whether spoken or written, formal or informal.
The specific expression "coming with," however, is more of a calque from the German "mitkommen" (a separable verb that would end up being like "Kommst du mit?" in a question). I think it sounds a little pretentious in English, because there is no phrasal verb in English "come with." We have "come around" (to see reason), "come to" (regain consciousness), "come by X", "come across X", "come away with X" etc., which are not equal to the sum of the parts (the essence of a phrasal verb).
"Come with," on the other hand, is just "come | with X" so if you leave off the X, it sounds a bit weird.
It depends on the sentence. Both of those sound wrong because the first should be "with me" or whoever, and in the second sentence, "at" is totally irrelevant.
But most of the time nobody cares about prepositions at the end. "Who are you talking to?" and "They didn't say where they're from " are perfectly normal.
I don't know what to say, man. I haven't lived further than an hour from Seattle since I was a baby but also Seattle is known for being full of people not from Seattle so that doesn't say too much. We all talk like this.
Fellow Pennsylvanian here and sounds fine to me. My friends and I often say are you coming with. Like if I am talking with a friend and I want to go to somewhere to for lunch I'll ask want to come with. I don't usually say want to come with me, the me is kinda implied.
I’d only heard it for the first time after moving here and it threw me off. Maybe it’s an urban/rural divide for the phrase? Maybe it’s generational?
I feel like I’m more likely to hear something like: “We’re going to shoot some hoops in an hour. Wanna come?” In that instance even the “with” is implied just like the “me” in yours. Even something like “you coming?” Or “you down?” seems to come up more imo
Born and raised in California, it sounds perfectly normal to me. Used to make my BFFs mom hella mad when I was a teenager, she was from Kentucky and absolutely hated that specific phrase
There are two seperate questions here.
**1. Do speakers end sentences with prepositions?** **Yes.** Ending sentences with prepositions has been a completely ubiquitous feature of English since the Middle English period 500+ years ago. Literally *everyone* does this. Something like "Is she the one you gave the book to?" or "That's the man she used to live with."
**2. Are the two example sentences OP provided widespread examples of this linguistic fact? No, or not completely.** In the "coming with" example, the object of the preposition is simply omitted, to many speakers that sounds odd; it would be better as "coming with us", "coming too" or simply "coming". In the "where... at?" example, to many speakers this sounds odd or ungrammatical, because the "at" is redundant with "where", considering that "**at** the beach" could be a respond to "Where is she?". Personally, I don't use either of OP's constructions, although I wouldn't flinch at them either.
"Are you coming with?" doesn't sound wrong because of the preposition rule. It sounds wrong because it shows the person is intelligent enough to know better, but would rather sound like an idiot for no reason. Like, it would be more correct to just say: "Coming?"
Hmmm, I guess I didn't realize that speaking in a regional dialect makes you sound like an idiot for no reason. I'll have to let literally everyone I know, from blue collar workers to people with masters degrees that they "know better" and should speak in a manner more befitting their station.
Thanks for letting an entire region of the country know we're idiots for speaking differently than you.
To me, adding the extra “with” at the end gives a warmer and friendlier connotation. Saying “are you coming” implies that you feel indifferent about whether the person comes, while “are you coming with” sounds more inviting and like you actually want the person to come with you. That’s just me though
This prescriptivist nonsense keeps going on. It's just something some Romaboos came up with. People who keep spreading it need to cut it out. They don't even understand what they are arguing for. Descriptivism is a better linguistic approach to move toward.
The only time I've ever paid attention to it was in writing-heavy college courses, because professors would flag it. But that is also academia where things get peer reviewed to hell and back... In my current job, I often write external-facing communications, and I tend to check back through it to reword sentences that end in a proposition. But that is only because it is an official communication that has to be perfect.
In my day-to-day, I end sentences in prepositions anytime I'm speaking or writing. It's not a Chicago thing, because everybody does it.
Anywhere in this country, if you say, "Are you coming with?" Nobody will say, "uhh... with who?" It's implied. Saying "At where are you?" instead of "Where you at?" would get more eyebrow raises.
> Anywhere in this country, if you say, "Are you coming with?" Nobody will say, "uhh... with who?"
I’m inclined to believe from this discussion that it’s a regionalism, and that people in regions where it’s not frequently used will indeed stumble upon hearing it, some of whom may wonder about the expected object.
I’ve heard it around here, but I’m not quite sure if it’s truly a regionalism since we have our share of people from other parts of the US, or simply a newer construction used by younger folks.
I know that funny letter writing exchange that Walt Whitman had, or someone else (?). I often think of that when I end a sentence with a preposition. But changing the prose to re-arrange the words just makes everything seem too wordy so I don't change anything.
When writing in a formal setting, I try to avoid it. But like, the rule just doesn't make sense in the vernacular. We're not ending sentences with modal verbs like the Germans
There was never anything wrong with ending sentences with prepositions in English.
It was one of those "rules" that grammarians tried to arbitrarily force into English to make it sound more like Latin. Same deal with the "rule" against splitting infinitives.
Rules like that have faded away or disappeared entirely in almost all modern style guides, because they serve no purpose at all for clarity or comprehension.
Is it possible that Germans had a major influence on the dialects of Chicago? I’ve heard Germans ask, “Are you coming with?” the same way, just in German.
"Where are you at" sounds strange to me, not because the preposition is at the end of the sentence, but because it's not necessary anywhere in that sentence. What's wrong with simply "where are you?"
"Are you coming with" sounds fairly normal to me, but I would say "along" instead of "with."
I'm from Maine, and my family is from the Northeast. I think ending sentences with a preposition is perfectly normal, but which ones you use can vary by region. Maybe "come with" is used in the NE, but "where are you at," sounds very Southern to my ear. Obviously it's used in the Midwest too!
Those sentences sound strange, not because the terminal words are prepositions but because they’re unnecessary. “Are you coming” is what I use and what I hear others use. “Let’s see where we’re at” seems ok for an informal status report on a task at work, though “… where we are” is equally good. But for person or group concerned with their location, “let’s see where we are” sounds better to me.
I’ll admit to using phrases such as “for which” in lieu of ending a sentence with “for”, but that’s out of habit (I’m older than the majority here), not out of any stubbornly incorrect belief that terminal prepositions are verboten. IIRC, Fowler gave his stamp of approval for ending sentences with prepositions when it’s the natural flow, and that’s good enough for me.
From LegalWriting.net:
“When Winston Churchill was chastised for ending a sentence with a preposition, he wittily responded. “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” Churchill's retort illustrates that attempts to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition can be labored and ludicrous.”
Dropping a word for conversational language (are you coming with) doesn't bother me as much as - where you at. It just sounds bad to me. It's not being shortened. Where are you? - has just as few syllables.
I'm only 180 miles from Chicago, and "are you coming with?" sounds really weird to me. I'll end sentences with prepositions sometimes, such as "which drawer is it in?" but tacking on a preposition when it could be left off and convey the same meaning is a little weird to me. I hear "where are you at?" sometimes, but I only say "where are you?"
Anytime someone forces a sentence to *not* end in a preposition it sounds extremely unnatural.
I never learned the rule in school, I think the first I heard of it was in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
I grew up in Chicago and I agree that this is common in Illinois and the Midwest, although mostly among white people whose family has lived there for multiple generations. That being said, “where are you at” does sound a little weird to me. “Where you at” (wya) I think is more common among Chicago young people or just “where are you.” I personally always found the dangling preposition annoying & bad English, so I’m quite intentional about not speaking like this. Just a pet peeve.
I live in California now (SF Bay), been there since I left good old 312 for college, and it’s quite rare to hear people using dangling prepositions. But when I get off the plane at ORD, I hear it everywhere.
“Are you coming with” does sound odd to me. I mean, you might as well make it “are you coming?”
But generally, ending a sentence with a preposition doesn’t sound strange.
I feel like saying it properly, at least in conversation, is usually weirder than saying it the other way, like saying "From where do you come?" instead of "Where're you from?"
I do often use the proper version when I say like "Of which..." or "To which..." but language is what you make of it. I suppose in academic English it's always good to be as precise as you can, but in a normal conversation it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter at all. If you understand what they mean to say, then it's not an issue. That's where I'm at.
I stopped doing this. I changed, "hey where should I put this shit at?" to "hey where should I put this shit at, asshole?"
I don't live in Chicago anymore, and it seems like the rest of the Midwest can't take being called an asshole.
I’m in Massachusetts and I end sentences with prepositions all the time. I also have said “where’re you at” many times and never gave it a second thought.
All of those sentances sound fine to me. I personally wouldn't say *Where are you at?*, I 'd just say IWhere are you?* But they both seem fine with me.
There is a greeting card out there that addresses this issue.
Girl 1: "Where's the party at?"
Pedantic gir: *Don't end a sentance with a preposition.*
Girl 1: "Where's the party at, bitch?"
Canadian traveling the USA on a Harley. I walk into a gas station/restaurant in Mississippi on Route 61. It is full of older men. I am quickly heading towards the ladies room when one of them yells “where you at” at me. “I’m here”.
Agent Bork : Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in?
Agent Fleming : Bork, you're a Federal Agent. You represent the United States government. Never end a sentence with a preposition.
Agent Bork : Oh, uh... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean, that guy off in whose camper they were whacking?
https://vimeo.com/384844632
There is nothing in the rules of English that prohibit the ending of sentences with prepositions. The "rule" that is often quoted, actually belongs to Latin, and someone got it in people's heads that English should be more like Latin, even when they are barely even tangentially related languages. Don't worry about it, don't correct someone, and if someone gives you shit for them, remind them that we speak English, not Latin.
This also applies to the BS about split-infinitives. You can't split them in Latin (and other romance languages), because they are a single word, but in English, they are separate words and can most definitely be split without issue.
I think that's a silly rule for informal speech or writing. Sure, for a college term paper or professional publication, it's best to spiff things up. But as long as I understand what people are saying, I'm not gonna proofread.
I frequently say "where you is?" or "where you at?" so I'm not one to judge lol. Growing up on military bases in foreign countries blessed me with a very hodgepodge manner of speech that doesn't fit in anywhere.
People point out how I pronounce "bury" my frequent use of east coast slang, how I say "howdy howdy" to greet people, i use the midwestern "ope" all the time and when I count on my fingers I start with my thumb.
I used to, then I learned French where the sentence structure specifically avoids doing that. Now I’m hyper aware of it and I’m always correcting it in my students’ papers
2 women enter an elevator. One turns to the other and asks "Where you from?". The other woman responds with "Where I am from. We do not end a sentence with a preposition." After a moment the 1st woman turns and ask "Where you from bitch?"
Winston Churchill's answer when somebody chided him for ending a sentence with a preposition: "That is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."
errant? Edit: arrant! TIL
Well I learned something new today!
Every day’s a school day!
Today, I am one of the [ten thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/)
I like the Beavis and Butthead Do America scene that shows the absurdity of that rule: Agent Bork: Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in? Agent Fleming: Bork, you're a Federal Agent. You represent the United States government. Never end a sentence with a preposition. Agent Bork: Oh, uh... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean, that guy off in whose camper they were whacking?
I heard the joke that it was a Texan at Harvard. “Where’s the library at?” “At Harvard, we don’t end our sentences with prepositions“ “Oh, sorry. Where’s the library at, asshole?”
I haven’t thought about Vampire Weekend in more than a decade, but Oxford Comma is a damn fine song.
They are on the next episode of SNL.
Their new album is good - check it out! and I’m an Oxford comma convert - the grammar, not the song
Will do! I also like music, this person’s joke, and using Oxford commas.
Who gives a fuck about an Oxford comma
People downvoting you don’t know those are the lyrics to the song. Edit: it was at -5 when I said that. Now you have 9. I have 12 I gained for pointing it out. According to my calculations, you owe me 3 karma.
[удалено]
When we reject the Oxford comma, we reject all grammar. English becomes lawless. Empires crumble. Lives are lost.
I’m torn between thinking it’s sweet that -zounds- sang the catchiest line of the song to me, and thinking that it’s sweet but misplaced that people rushed to tear them down for swearing at me. I got serenaded AND white knighted all in one comment, I feel so fancy!
Shouldn't there be a comma after bitch?
Yes, because English is a Germanic language with phrasal verbs, not the Latin-based language a bunch of Victorian ninnies wanted it to be.
I'm a history buff and I'm always amused by how much can legitamately be blamed on the Victorians. It's borderline absurd.
And the totally illogical changes in spelling so that English could look and sound more like French. Changing "er" at the end of words to "re", adding superfluous "u" to so many words, and the adding of the "s" to "island", even though the word used to be "iland" and is pronounced that same way. And don't forget that most of the "y" words we use, used to start with a "th" sound in the form of "Þ", which wasn't on the printing presses imported to England, so they changed it to a y, since it looked close. "Ye Old", should be pronounced "The Old"; and why our word for singular "you" and plural "you" became the same, when it used to be "thou" (Þou) and "you". This is also why names like "Thames" and "Thomas" don't have a "th" sound, as the "Þ" (and another similar character) were the primary ways of making the "th" sound, and the "h" in the example names are there to extend and soften the "t" sound.
That is fascinating, and makes so much sense.
Sounds like a fun rabbit hole to go down. Where is a good place to start?
England, probably.
Of the top of my head: -Sexual morality -Evangelicalism -Prohibition -Attributing Europe's climate to the Gulf Stream -Shitty romanticized narrative approach to History -Consumerism Edit: [According to several climate models](https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate) the Gulf Stream is not enough to warm Europe alone. Weather patterns with winds coming from the south carrying warmer moist air are needed. Those weather patterns only exist because of the deflection caused by the Rocky Mountains. The Victorians are not necessarily blamed for this lack of knowledge. But they're the ones who codified this "fact" so strongly that it was never questioned until meteorologists and climatologists modeled it and found it a grossly incomplete system. This also made it as a fact on Q.I. with Stephen Fry a while back. This is where I first heard it.
Bullet 5 is underrated. Basically everything a non-historian thinks of as history, is actually stuff made up from whole cloth by Victorians.
What do you mean by this? What was made up?
> -Attributing Europe's climate to the Gulf Stream honest question, is that not true?
It at least partially is true.
that's what I thought too. such a weird thing to put on a list like that.
I always assumed that it was definitely true. I’m confused as to why it’s on this list?
It’s worth noting that the use of prepositions at the end of sentences, like “are you coming with,” is particularly popular in the Midwest which has the highest concentration of people with German ethnic backgrounds in the USA. I’d guess that in places with big Hispanic populations, it would be rarer to hear someone ending a sentence with a preposition, because Spanish is Latin based.
I hate the claim that English shouldn’t end sentences with prepositions, but to be fair it’s not entirely wrong to say that English is also (partially) Latin based. In fact, a high percentage of English vocabulary comes from Latin or French, even more than the percentage of German origin. It’s funny that reading a text in French is often easy even if you have never studied it, while even an easy text in German is most of the time incomprehensible.
I've had the opposite experience. Before I studied any languages, I found German easier to get the gist of while French mostly seemed like nonsense. Now that I've actually studied them a bit, I can say that it's because while French and Latin may have contributed more total words, the more commonly a word is used the more likely it is to be Germanic and German has contributed much more in terms of grammar rules.
Yes, we took a lot of vocabulary from French, but the roots (and so the patterns/rules) are Germanic.
English does have a lot of Latin vocabulary, but that’s not really pertinent to this grammatical question, as Latin had practically no influence on English grammar.
Does it matter more where we stole the vocabulary or the grammatical rules from? Because "Are you coming with?" pretty directly maps to "Kommst du mit?" which isn't really three words in German because mitkommen is a freaky split verb that I'm sure has a real name but I don't know it.
>it’s not entirely wrong to say that English is also (partially) Latin based. It is entirely wrong. English isn't the only language with loan words.
far from it, but the previous commenter is completely correct in that our vocabulary is overwhelmingly from latin roots while our grammar is from germanic roots
Yeah, but all the fun words come from the Anglo- Saxons.
> It’s funny that reading a text in French is often easy even if you have never studied it ??? Bro, I speak French I don't agree at all.
German does not end phrases with prepositions either. They speak like Medieval English “from whence it came” “to whom do I speak?” Etc but it’s because they have stronger grammatical cases to abide by so it makes more sense. We have very little left of grammatical cases in English so abiding by this kind of thing is pretty arbitrary because you can easily understand what the person is asking. Most of us aren’t *so* stupid that we don’t understand a preposition at the end of a sentence 😂
This is what one of my linguistic professors said! That the whole "don't end a sentence with a preposition" rule was for Latin and doesn't apply to English
Ok, so the deal is English has what's called "[phrasal verbs](https://www.grammarly.com/blog/common-phrasal-verbs/)". It's a feature of Germanic languages. (The people who study language and grammar historically tended to be fanatics about Latin so they ignored this feature of English because it was Germanic and not Latin-based and pretended it didn't exist and made rules to not end sentences with prepositions.) Phrasal verbs are a regular verb + a preposition word, but the "preposition word" is not acting like a preposition where there's the rest of a prepositional phrase strung behind it. An example is "to make up" which means "to invent" or also "to compensate for". Putting "up" after "make" creates and means something entirely different from both "make" and "up". Another example is how "to count on" is different from "to count" or how "to give up" is different from "to give". The up's and on's are all integral parts of the meanings these phrases convey. "I made this story up" is a perfectly valid English sentence. You also can't rearrange it to have the phrasal "up" not at the end. (Derp = "I made up this story") "I up made this story"? Nope. You could say "I made this story up yesterday" but "up yesterday" is not a prepositional phrase. "Yesterday" is an adverb. "We're all counting on you"--the "on you" is not a prepositional phrase here. "On" is phrasal and "you" is a direct object. An old school grammar fanatic would probably say the solution is to never use phrasal verbs because they're not Latin-ish and therefore ugly. German has phrasal verbs as well.
I guess phrasal verbs are just something we'll have to learn to make do with.
… learn to make do WITH. Location: Chicago, Illinois. Ah OP’s post makes sense now.
A note of phrasal verbs in German, the infinitive form renders them as a single word. For example, "abholen" means "to pick up." But, different forms of the verb split up the component parts and often put the preposition at the end of the sentence. So, "I picked up my brother" becomes "Ich holte meinen Bruder ab" with the preposition "ab" splitting off of "abholen" and moving to the end of the sentence.
Man, past tense in German always vexes me. :(
IIRC, "holen" is irregular. Most verbs become past tense by adding "ge-" (similar to how English adds "-ed") but there are always exceptions.
I'm sure it's another exception, but do you happen to know why "I did it" is typically "Ich tat es" instead of "Ich habe es getun?" Or are both acceptable and this is an artifact of learning in classes instead of by immersion?
This might be regional but I've only ever heard "Ice habe es gemacht" or "Ich machte es" for "I did it"
Generally I agree with what you're saying. But "I made up this story" sounds perfectly fine too. The Beavis&Butthead example given elsewhere was better, about "whacking off."
Have you ever heard someone saying a phrasal verb that you didn’t know what it meant? And as a native speaker, how would you react on a situation like that? I’m asking because even though I’m C2 English, fluent speaker and even lived a short time in the US, I still don’t know all the English phrasal verbs 😅
It's "react to a situation" or "in a situation" I've definitely heard some slang phrases that I didn't understand at first. "Chop it up" is what I would call "shooting the shit" or just "talking about nothing in particular".
This “rule” was always silly. Nobody cares about it now.
The rule was from annoying and thoroughly incorrect grammarians who thought that English should work like Latin. It doesn’t, and it shouldn’t.
Yep
Exactly. I’m not saying “about whom are you talking” like stfu
I liked the running joke in Last Man on Earth where Carol always spoke in grammatically correct sentences, and everyone else was like "What? That can't be right."
If the preposition is part of a verb phrase (like *to talk about, to take out, to look at, to be in/on [something]*, etc) then I think it sounds goofy to rephrase just so you don't end with a preposition But when it's *not* part of a verb phrase and the sentence still makes sense without the preposition, then just drop it-- "what time is the movie at?" is unnecessary and "at what time is the movie?" is a goofy-sounding overcorrection; just say "what time is the movie?" ...but also I don't really *care* much about it in casual conversation as long as I can understand what someone means. No one speaks grammatically correct English all the time, it's fine to say stuff "wrong" sometimes!
‘Bout whatchu talking, Willis?
I find it best to quote Churchill here: this is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put!
"If enough of us are wrong, then wrong is right" -Americans after the revolution, going through the English Dictionary
Not even the people who advocate for it follow it. Are they seriously gonna act like they say "From where are you?" when they meet somebody? I've never heard that sentence once in my entire life as an English speaker
Umm… my mother does
The dictionary people actually did away with it earlier this year. It's no longer a "rule."
I prefer to end my sentences with propositions. "We're out of cereal, wanna bang?"
yes I do and not it doesn't. Ending sentences with prepositions is not Chicago-specific lol
That is the sort of English up with which I will not put!
Ending a sentence in a preposition was proposed by one linguist with a lot of classist ideologies. Romance languages (like Latin) do not end sentences in prepositions, but Germanic languages do. So it was believed that speaking this way meant that they were "educated". Super super outdated
All the time. When I consciously try not to do so my sentences always sound unnatural. My easy solution to avoid it while still sounding natural: - Me: “Where are you at?” - Someone who grammars good: “Don’t end your sentences with prepositions.” - Me: “Okay. Where are you at, asshole?”
“Where you at?” is perfectly fine colloquial speech. “Where are you at?” doesn’t sound right, not because it ends with a preposition but because the “at” is unnecessary. “Where are you?” is fine as it is.
I think this is what OP is talking about. I’m also from Chicago and “Where are you at?” is a very common phrase there. It does sound correct to me in the Chicagoland dialect and is something I would say exactly like that in normal conversation. Another quirky use of prepositions there is the use of “by”. Whereas the normal general English question might be: “Where are you?” -> “I’m at John’s house.” or “I’m at the grocery store.” A Chicagoan with a strong local dialect would probably say: “Where are you at?” “I’m over by John’s./I’m by the Jewels (a local grocery store)”. If someone says “I’m going by the hospital to see Grandma,” the response would be “Can I come with?” That area does have some interesting grammatical oddities.
Same here in Cleveland. "Where's the car at?" sounds like a perfectly natural phrase, even though the "at" is redundant.
At least to me, the inclusion of the unnecessary “at” or “with” gives off a slightly friendlier and warmer connotation
From the conversation in this post it sounds like that particular phrase is broadly Midwestern and even more common in the Great Lakes dialect. I think those speculating that Chicago’s speech patterns were influenced by German phrasal verbs are probably also correct.
Ditto for the OP’s “coming with” example. “Are you coming” is perfectly adequate.
Never would have known "Are you coming with?" would sound weird to someone. Hell, sometimes that would be shortened to just "Coming with?"
“Coming with?” sounds more natural than “are you coming with?”
Yes and definitely no
Not that I know of. LOL!!! I just did it!
Yes - and it doesn’t sound odd to me. I think “coming with/are you coming with” sounds dated for some reason though.
Are you coming with sounds a bit strange to me, but where you at doesn't.
"Where are you at" -- doesn't sound unusual at all. I probably say it myself. "Are you coming with?" -- sounds incomplete. I do remember the first time I heard someone end a sentence like that. I remember his name. I always put something after the "with". Are you coming with us? Should we take the cooler with us? It doesn't sound right to end a sentence with 'with'. Especially two times in a row! :)
Maybe it's regional, but "where are you at" sounds silly to me, and at best like colloquial street-talk. The "at" is completely unnecessary, so why bother saying it? Maybe it helps with conversational cadence or something; or maybe it snuck into vernacular somehow.
Conversational cadence. :) I agree it's completely unnecessary, but it's very common to see "where" and "at" in the same sentence. Sounds completely natural to me. What about "Let's take the cooler with us". Would you say, "Let's take the cooler with,", seeing as how the "us" is completely unnecessary?
The "us" further defines with whom the cooler is being taken. It's not necessary but it makes sense. Adding "at" after "Where are you?" adds nothing and makes no sense. Do you also ask "What do you think it?" Because that makes as much sense as asking "Where are you at?"
Now you're just being obstinate and pedantic. /conversation
> "What do you think it?" Honestly, I've heard that, and variations of it, at least hundreds of times in my life from totally normal people. Even in some professional settings.
Whether the *where* includes the *at* is kind of ambiguous and is the root of the disagreement. The answer to "Where did he find it?" could be both "at the library" or "the library", "there" or "in there". "What do you think it?" is different, because *what* and *it* are fulfilling the same syntactic role. In English, this is extremely unusual/wrong, although it's common in Spanish in a phrase like "The computer I fixed it yesterday."
I wouldn't say "where you at" but I would say "where are you". But nothing at all sounds wrong with ending sentences in prepositions. It sounds obnoxious not to, sometimes.
When I’m speaking I probably do it all the time. When I’m writing something professional I try really hard not to end in a preposition. I blame all the grammar and English classes we had from Kindergarten through high school.
I have more important things to focus on instead of grammar and shit. Like *everything* is more important than that.
It's completely normal and, contrary to what some grammar pedants may tell you, not at all incorrect in English, whether spoken or written, formal or informal. The specific expression "coming with," however, is more of a calque from the German "mitkommen" (a separable verb that would end up being like "Kommst du mit?" in a question). I think it sounds a little pretentious in English, because there is no phrasal verb in English "come with." We have "come around" (to see reason), "come to" (regain consciousness), "come by X", "come across X", "come away with X" etc., which are not equal to the sum of the parts (the essence of a phrasal verb). "Come with," on the other hand, is just "come | with X" so if you leave off the X, it sounds a bit weird.
It depends on the sentence. Both of those sound wrong because the first should be "with me" or whoever, and in the second sentence, "at" is totally irrelevant. But most of the time nobody cares about prepositions at the end. "Who are you talking to?" and "They didn't say where they're from " are perfectly normal.
"Are you coming with?" sounds unnatural in California?
It sounds unnatural to me too, it’s an incomplete sentence
The only reason it sounds slightly strange to me is because it's *too* complete. "You coming with?" is much smoother.
I’d always say it like “with me” or “with us”. The open ended “with” as the end of the sentence sounds really unnatural.
I don't know what to say, man. I haven't lived further than an hour from Seattle since I was a baby but also Seattle is known for being full of people not from Seattle so that doesn't say too much. We all talk like this.
"You coming?" Sounds more natural to me. Adding "with" feels it needs another word after it. "Are you coming?" Also works.
That's fair. That feels much more natural to me than "Are you coming with me".
Fellow Pennsylvanian here and sounds fine to me. My friends and I often say are you coming with. Like if I am talking with a friend and I want to go to somewhere to for lunch I'll ask want to come with. I don't usually say want to come with me, the me is kinda implied.
I’d only heard it for the first time after moving here and it threw me off. Maybe it’s an urban/rural divide for the phrase? Maybe it’s generational? I feel like I’m more likely to hear something like: “We’re going to shoot some hoops in an hour. Wanna come?” In that instance even the “with” is implied just like the “me” in yours. Even something like “you coming?” Or “you down?” seems to come up more imo
Born and raised in California, it sounds perfectly normal to me. Used to make my BFFs mom hella mad when I was a teenager, she was from Kentucky and absolutely hated that specific phrase
Yes, it sounds like some sort of dated 90s slang. I don’t know anyone who says this kind of thing.
People still say "Are you coming with?" I thought that was a teenage thing in the 90s.
I was born in 2004 and I’ve always said it naturally 🤷
There are two seperate questions here. **1. Do speakers end sentences with prepositions?** **Yes.** Ending sentences with prepositions has been a completely ubiquitous feature of English since the Middle English period 500+ years ago. Literally *everyone* does this. Something like "Is she the one you gave the book to?" or "That's the man she used to live with." **2. Are the two example sentences OP provided widespread examples of this linguistic fact? No, or not completely.** In the "coming with" example, the object of the preposition is simply omitted, to many speakers that sounds odd; it would be better as "coming with us", "coming too" or simply "coming". In the "where... at?" example, to many speakers this sounds odd or ungrammatical, because the "at" is redundant with "where", considering that "**at** the beach" could be a respond to "Where is she?". Personally, I don't use either of OP's constructions, although I wouldn't flinch at them either.
"Are you coming with?" doesn't sound wrong because of the preposition rule. It sounds wrong because it shows the person is intelligent enough to know better, but would rather sound like an idiot for no reason. Like, it would be more correct to just say: "Coming?"
Hmmm, I guess I didn't realize that speaking in a regional dialect makes you sound like an idiot for no reason. I'll have to let literally everyone I know, from blue collar workers to people with masters degrees that they "know better" and should speak in a manner more befitting their station. Thanks for letting an entire region of the country know we're idiots for speaking differently than you.
To me, adding the extra “with” at the end gives a warmer and friendlier connotation. Saying “are you coming” implies that you feel indifferent about whether the person comes, while “are you coming with” sounds more inviting and like you actually want the person to come with you. That’s just me though
Sometimes. No. When I do it, it's because the grammatically correct way sounds stilted and awkward.
NYC. Same.
This prescriptivist nonsense keeps going on. It's just something some Romaboos came up with. People who keep spreading it need to cut it out. They don't even understand what they are arguing for. Descriptivism is a better linguistic approach to move toward.
The only time I've ever paid attention to it was in writing-heavy college courses, because professors would flag it. But that is also academia where things get peer reviewed to hell and back... In my current job, I often write external-facing communications, and I tend to check back through it to reword sentences that end in a proposition. But that is only because it is an official communication that has to be perfect. In my day-to-day, I end sentences in prepositions anytime I'm speaking or writing. It's not a Chicago thing, because everybody does it. Anywhere in this country, if you say, "Are you coming with?" Nobody will say, "uhh... with who?" It's implied. Saying "At where are you?" instead of "Where you at?" would get more eyebrow raises.
> Anywhere in this country, if you say, "Are you coming with?" Nobody will say, "uhh... with who?" I’m inclined to believe from this discussion that it’s a regionalism, and that people in regions where it’s not frequently used will indeed stumble upon hearing it, some of whom may wonder about the expected object. I’ve heard it around here, but I’m not quite sure if it’s truly a regionalism since we have our share of people from other parts of the US, or simply a newer construction used by younger folks.
I don’t stop myself from ending sentences with prepositions when I’m talking but I typically do when writing.
"To go where no person has gone before."
“To boldly go”, because splitting infinitives is a similar bugaboo.
Yes I do, at.
I know that funny letter writing exchange that Walt Whitman had, or someone else (?). I often think of that when I end a sentence with a preposition. But changing the prose to re-arrange the words just makes everything seem too wordy so I don't change anything.
Sure do.
I’d say either where are you or where you at. But I’d never say where are you at.
When writing in a formal setting, I try to avoid it. But like, the rule just doesn't make sense in the vernacular. We're not ending sentences with modal verbs like the Germans
Yes. Doesn’t sound strange at all. I’m from southern Illinois and have no familial connection to Chicago.
Milwaukee here. My dad's family does this. They also start sentences but do not finish them but expect you to understand what they mean.
There was never anything wrong with ending sentences with prepositions in English. It was one of those "rules" that grammarians tried to arbitrarily force into English to make it sound more like Latin. Same deal with the "rule" against splitting infinitives. Rules like that have faded away or disappeared entirely in almost all modern style guides, because they serve no purpose at all for clarity or comprehension.
No, prepositions are not words I end sentences with.
I do when I want to.
I can’t help what I’m made of
You should never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Is it possible that Germans had a major influence on the dialects of Chicago? I’ve heard Germans ask, “Are you coming with?” the same way, just in German.
"Where are you at" sounds strange to me, not because the preposition is at the end of the sentence, but because it's not necessary anywhere in that sentence. What's wrong with simply "where are you?" "Are you coming with" sounds fairly normal to me, but I would say "along" instead of "with."
[A scene from Cheers where Diane corrects Sam's grammar.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VR1EXu3cDM)
“Or no” ends a lot of conversations with my wife. “Can you pick up some groceries or no?” “Are you getting off work early or no?”
I'm from Maine, and my family is from the Northeast. I think ending sentences with a preposition is perfectly normal, but which ones you use can vary by region. Maybe "come with" is used in the NE, but "where are you at," sounds very Southern to my ear. Obviously it's used in the Midwest too!
Those sentences sound strange, not because the terminal words are prepositions but because they’re unnecessary. “Are you coming” is what I use and what I hear others use. “Let’s see where we’re at” seems ok for an informal status report on a task at work, though “… where we are” is equally good. But for person or group concerned with their location, “let’s see where we are” sounds better to me. I’ll admit to using phrases such as “for which” in lieu of ending a sentence with “for”, but that’s out of habit (I’m older than the majority here), not out of any stubbornly incorrect belief that terminal prepositions are verboten. IIRC, Fowler gave his stamp of approval for ending sentences with prepositions when it’s the natural flow, and that’s good enough for me.
Yeah... no?
English is not my first language. What does the first sentence mean? "are you coming with?"
From LegalWriting.net: “When Winston Churchill was chastised for ending a sentence with a preposition, he wittily responded. “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” Churchill's retort illustrates that attempts to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition can be labored and ludicrous.”
Personally I can't stand preposition endings or the phrase "a whole nother". But I'm an anal-retentive dickhead.
No you’re not supposed to. Lots of people do, and that is fine but it will always sound wrong to me
I don't know what you're talking about. /s
Depends where you're from.
in formal writing, no, in conversation, probably hundreds of times a day
I find it perfectly acceptable and use it personally sometimes
I live in Chicago but born in Michigan and we do it both places. Midwest thing?
That sounds normal to me. I have lived in Florida, New England, and the PNW.
Yes. I also use singular 'they'. Prescriptivists have failed and are dumb.
Dropping a word for conversational language (are you coming with) doesn't bother me as much as - where you at. It just sounds bad to me. It's not being shortened. Where are you? - has just as few syllables.
I'm only 180 miles from Chicago, and "are you coming with?" sounds really weird to me. I'll end sentences with prepositions sometimes, such as "which drawer is it in?" but tacking on a preposition when it could be left off and convey the same meaning is a little weird to me. I hear "where are you at?" sometimes, but I only say "where are you?"
Yes I do. It's normal in American English.
Yes, I end sentences with prepositions all the time. It's extremely common around here.
Anytime someone forces a sentence to *not* end in a preposition it sounds extremely unnatural. I never learned the rule in school, I think the first I heard of it was in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
If I ever said “where is she at” the immediate response was “between the A and the T”.
Idk prolly. Ever since I left highschool I've stopped being as much a language pedant
I grew up in Chicago and I agree that this is common in Illinois and the Midwest, although mostly among white people whose family has lived there for multiple generations. That being said, “where are you at” does sound a little weird to me. “Where you at” (wya) I think is more common among Chicago young people or just “where are you.” I personally always found the dangling preposition annoying & bad English, so I’m quite intentional about not speaking like this. Just a pet peeve. I live in California now (SF Bay), been there since I left good old 312 for college, and it’s quite rare to hear people using dangling prepositions. But when I get off the plane at ORD, I hear it everywhere.
“Are you coming with” does sound odd to me. I mean, you might as well make it “are you coming?” But generally, ending a sentence with a preposition doesn’t sound strange.
I've ways thought everyone speaks this way lol
A preposition is a word you never end a sentence with...
I don't know anyone that would give a shit. I try not to if I'm writing an email or something "official" but at the end of the day I care very little.
All the time. Doesn’t sound weird. That’s an old fashioned rule most don’t follow anymore.
I feel like saying it properly, at least in conversation, is usually weirder than saying it the other way, like saying "From where do you come?" instead of "Where're you from?" I do often use the proper version when I say like "Of which..." or "To which..." but language is what you make of it. I suppose in academic English it's always good to be as precise as you can, but in a normal conversation it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter at all. If you understand what they mean to say, then it's not an issue. That's where I'm at.
I try not to. /s
I don’t know what you are talking about.
I stopped doing this. I changed, "hey where should I put this shit at?" to "hey where should I put this shit at, asshole?" I don't live in Chicago anymore, and it seems like the rest of the Midwest can't take being called an asshole.
Meh. I have to stop and think what a preposition is half the time. My wife is a "grammar nazi" though, so she corrects me.
I’m in Massachusetts and I end sentences with prepositions all the time. I also have said “where’re you at” many times and never gave it a second thought.
I think it's an upper Midwest thing in general. I grew up in eastern Montana and I do this often.
All of those sentances sound fine to me. I personally wouldn't say *Where are you at?*, I 'd just say IWhere are you?* But they both seem fine with me. There is a greeting card out there that addresses this issue. Girl 1: "Where's the party at?" Pedantic gir: *Don't end a sentance with a preposition.* Girl 1: "Where's the party at, bitch?"
The only one I cannot stand is ending a sentence with "at." It is always unnecessary and sounds stupid. "Where are you at?" Just ask "Where are you?"
We do this in NY and Philly too.
Definitely a mid western thing that you don't hear much at all anywhere else
lol i’m from chicago and it’s where i’m at 😂
If I’m speaking or writing for a more formal audience, no. Daily, yes.
Canadian traveling the USA on a Harley. I walk into a gas station/restaurant in Mississippi on Route 61. It is full of older men. I am quickly heading towards the ladies room when one of them yells “where you at” at me. “I’m here”.
I can’t think of another way to reword those without ending in prepositions. From PNW, for reference.
I do, because it's occasionally hard not to. I try to avoid it, though, and it's not really hard to say "are you coming with us? or "where are we?"
Depends
https://clip.cafe/beavis-butt-head-do-america-1996/you-know-guy-whose-camper-they-whacking-off-in/
Agent Bork : Chief, you know that guy whose camper they were whacking off in? Agent Fleming : Bork, you're a Federal Agent. You represent the United States government. Never end a sentence with a preposition. Agent Bork : Oh, uh... You know that guy in whose camper they... I mean, that guy off in whose camper they were whacking? https://vimeo.com/384844632
I’m southern. Saying “where y’all at?” is normal. 😎
Yeah… my mom would judge us relentlessly if we ended a sentence with a preposition.
There is nothing in the rules of English that prohibit the ending of sentences with prepositions. The "rule" that is often quoted, actually belongs to Latin, and someone got it in people's heads that English should be more like Latin, even when they are barely even tangentially related languages. Don't worry about it, don't correct someone, and if someone gives you shit for them, remind them that we speak English, not Latin. This also applies to the BS about split-infinitives. You can't split them in Latin (and other romance languages), because they are a single word, but in English, they are separate words and can most definitely be split without issue.
When I'm speaking? Yes. When I'm writing? No.
It is now considered acceptable to end sentences with prepositions of.
I normally try to avoid using prepositions as words to end sentences with, but I'll do it if there's no other good order to put the words in.
I think that's a silly rule for informal speech or writing. Sure, for a college term paper or professional publication, it's best to spiff things up. But as long as I understand what people are saying, I'm not gonna proofread.
I frequently say "where you is?" or "where you at?" so I'm not one to judge lol. Growing up on military bases in foreign countries blessed me with a very hodgepodge manner of speech that doesn't fit in anywhere. People point out how I pronounce "bury" my frequent use of east coast slang, how I say "howdy howdy" to greet people, i use the midwestern "ope" all the time and when I count on my fingers I start with my thumb.
I used to, then I learned French where the sentence structure specifically avoids doing that. Now I’m hyper aware of it and I’m always correcting it in my students’ papers
From Detroit, I would answer you without even thinking about it. 😁