Prepositions Quotes

• Preposition: An enormously versatile part of grammar, as in 'What made you pick this book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?'

  Winston Churchill

  Book, Want, Made

  30 Copy quote

• A preposition is a word You mustn't end a sentence with!

  Berton Braley

  Ends, Sentences

  21 Copy quote

• The breakdown of our language, evident in the misuse, i.e., the misunderstanding of nouns and adjectives, is most grave, though perhaps not so conspicuous, in the handling of prepositions, those modest little connectives that hold the parts of a phrase or a sentence together. They are the joints of any language, what make it, literally, articulate.

  Mary McCarthy

  Together, Adjectives, Phrases

  Mary McCarthy (1985). “Occasional prose”, Harcourt

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• All the words in the English language are divided into nine great classes. These classes are called the Parts of Speech. They are Article, Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection.

  Joseph Devlin

  Class, Adjectives, Verbs

  Joseph Devlin (2014). “How to Speak and Write Correctly (illustrated): Fully Formatted Version”, p.5, Full Moon Publications

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• It is natural and harmless in English to use a preposition to end a sentence with.

  Kingsley Amis

  Use, Natural, Ends

  Kingsley Amis (2011). “The King's English”, p.209, Penguin UK

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• Once when the Yankee's Lou Pinella was batting he questioned a Palermo strike call. Pinella demanded, "Where was that pitch at?" Palermo told him that a man wearing Yankee pinstripes in front of 30,000 people should not end a sentence with a preposition. So Pinella, no dummy, said, "OK, where was that pitch at, asshole?"

  George Will

  Men, Yankees, Umpires

  17 Copy quote

• If one loves stories, then one would naturally love the story of the story. Or the story behind the story, pick your preposition. It does seem to me to be a kind of animal impulse almost, a mammalian curiosity. For a reader to wonder about the autobiography in a fiction may be completely unavoidable and in fact may speak to the success of a particular narrative, though it may also speak to its failure.

  Lorrie Moore

  Animal, Curiosity, Stories

  14 Copy quote

• If is a very big preposition.

  John Major

  Bigs, Ifs

  13 Copy quote

• I think a sentence is a fine thing to put a preposition at the end of.

  William Zinsser

  Thinking, Ends, Fine Things

  9 Copy quote

• The Patriarch Joseph, after agreeing with the Latins that their formula of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Son meant the same as the Greek formula of the Holy Ghost proceeding through the Son, fell ill and died. An unkind scholar remarked that after muddling his prepositions what else could he decently do?

  Steven Runciman

  Latin, Son, Greek

  12 Copy quote

• The human understanding, when any preposition has been once laid down... forces everything else to add fresh support and confirmation; and although more cogent and abundant instances may exist to the contrary, yet it either does not observe them or it despises them, or it gets rid of and rejects them by some distinction, with violent and injurious prejudice, rather than sacrifice the authority of its first conclusions.

  Francis Bacon

  Sacrifice, Support, Understanding

  10 Copy quote

• Prayer or not, I want to believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, it is possible for anyone to find that one special person. That person to spend Christmas with or grow old with or just to take a nice silly walk in Central Park with. Somebody who wouldn't judge another for the prepositions they dangle, or their run-on sentences, and who in turn wouldn't be judged for the snobbery of their language etymology inclinations.

  Rachel Cohn

  Running, Prayer, Nice

  Rachel Cohn, David Levithan (2010). “Dash & Lily's Book of Dares”, p.72, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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• This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.

  Winston Churchill

  Pedants, Type, Pedantry

  Wall Street Journal, December 9, 1948.

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• Stronger together is, I think, a preposition and a comparative adjective, but it's not really an action verb or what it is.

  Mark Shields

  Thinking, Together, Stronger

  Source: www.pbs.org

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