Q: In the “Living Dead” chapter of your grammar book Woe Is I, you say it’s OK to end a sentence with a preposition and you mention that Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton all did it. Could you back that up with some examples from their texts?
A: Here are a few:
Chaucer:
“But yit to this thing ther is yit another thing y-ioigned, more to ben wondred upon.” (From his translation of Boethius, Book IV.1)
Shakespeare:
“And do such bitter business as the day / Would quake to look on.” (Hamlet)
“… the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to.” (Hamlet)
“And makes us rather bear those ills we have / Than fly to others that we know not of?” (Hamlet)
” … those eyes / Which thou dost glare with.” (Macbeth)
” … some life / Which action’s self was tongue to.” (Henry VIII)
Milton:
“…ever held allowable to deal so by a tyrant that could no otherwise be dealt with.” (The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates)
” …what a fine conformity would it starch us all into!” (Areopagitica)
There are many more examples, but these are the closest I have at hand for the three authors you asked about.
You can find such “terminal prepositions” in Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons, as well as in the works of other great writers: Ben Jonson, Samuel Johnson, Spenser, Congreve, Fielding, Defoe, Austen, Tennyson, Thackeray, Swift, Carroll, James, Kipling, Twain, Joyce, and many others.
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