Monday, January 21, 2008

Prepositions Don't Count

From the often hilarious blog Totally Not Crazy we find another example of PGSLTSS (which I first blogged about here):

In any case I really hope Paris sells her next house to someone I'm tangentially connected__, so I can see what bold new choices she's forging in her design palette. (emphasis added)

The totally-not-crazy author might be sane (doubt it) but he’s clearly suffering from post grade school linguistics traumatic stress syndrome (PGSLTSS). Having properly completed the ditransitive construction sell X to Y, he was faced with both the terror of a possibly redundant “to” AND ending a sentence with a preposition (gasp!) because he decided to fill the dative argument of sell with the dislocated argument of connected, leaving the preposition stranded. Fearing retribution from The Nuns (perhaps) he chose to take the conservative route, and delete the last preposition, just in case. No biggie, right? Prepositions don’t really count anyway, hehe.


4 comments:

Jason M. Adams said...

Vote get rid pronouns, too. :P Can be filled smileys. Do think communication would still be possible?

When faced with the onerous task of worrying about prepositions ending sentences (that is, I hate worrying if someone is going to judge me for ending a sentence with one), I usually just boldly slap it there and boldly spit in the face of authority (and yes, I boldly split infinitives too). It's not clear if this has ever negatively affected me..

I am surprised at the missing to whom that usually gets clumsily plunked down in the middle of a sentence like that.

Chris said...

(We
(should
(all
(just speak
(in LISP)))))

Anonymous said...

Oh it's true--all of it, all of it!

Up to now, there's been nothing I wouldn't do to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. But having a name for my syndrome (PGSLTSS...there, I've said it) makes me realize there are people out there who can help.

I plan on blogging about my new diagnosis soon, and of course will give credit to the good doctor for his/her pioneering research.

(And feel free to tear this comment apart for grammatical errors; there are doubtless many and I crave the attention, as always.)

:)

Best,
C.

Chris said...

Thanks for the comment, Not-Crazy Chris. I'll get out my T-square and compass and begin diagramming your sentences after lunch, hehe.

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