can someone please tell me what the professor meant by "dangling participles" and "prepositions" in Harantis' story:
"peaking in dangling participles and ending his sentences with prepositions"
Thanks in advance (I am fluent in English, is is just that I am lack of vocabularies :s
I hope that no one will charge me for the explanation ... :p
Both, speaking in dangling participles and ending one's sentences in prepositions are considered improper English grammar.
A preposition is a word placed before a substantive and indicating the relation of that substantive to a verb, an adjective, or another substantive, as English at, by, in, to, from, and with.
The doctrine that a preposition may not be used to end a sentence was first promulgated by Dryden, probably on the basis of a specious analogy to Latin, and was subsequently refined by 18th-century grammarians. The rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammatical lore.
A dangling participle is a participle, usually in a subordinate clause, that lacks a clear grammatical relation with the subject of the sentence,
Both, ending sentences and the “dangling participle” is quite common in ordinary speech, where it often passes unremarked; but its use in writing can lead to unintentional absurdities, such as in the case of the dangling participle, in "He went to watch his horse take a turn around the track carrying a copy of the breeders' guide under his arm." Even when the construction occasions no ambiguity, it is likely to distract the reader. In the case of the prepositions, the sentenses "We have much for which to be thankful" or "That depends on that in which you believe" or grammatically correct, however they are awkward in ommon speech where they would be articulated "We have much to be thankful for" or "That depends on what you believe in."
In some dialects of English ... most notably .... "E-bonics" <cough> <cough> .... it is completely correct to end one's sentences with preopostions and elminate the participle altogether, or to mix in an actual verb when the spirit moves you, as in, "Where you at ?" "Where you from ?" or "Who you with ?" or "Where you going to ?"
Public Liabilities, Brook Shores & Intermesh have zero about D-i-c-k-&-M-a-r-y. Pls explain to a Mead Heath?
Maybe too much tedium for a medium, however it just might suit a premium.