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Archiver > TMG > 2003-03 > 1046511789


From: "Chris Sackett" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] OT - Terminal prepositions ( was ...Luxury...)
Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2003 09:43:09 -0000
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20030301004405.00a1f8c0@pop.sprynet.com>


>Hey Darrell
> >
> >How about:
> >
> >You folks are making me homesick for a place I have never been
> within 3,000
> >miles (5,000 kilometers) of, buster.
> [snip]
>
> Hi, Myrnice:
>
> A little brusque for my taste, but works, yes [big grin].
>
> Darrell

Darrell, Myrnice,

When I get in a muddle with English usage I turn to the work of fellow
Guernseyman the estimable H W Fowler who, in his Dictionary of Modern
English Usage, gives many examples from literature of terminal prepositions,
some of which seem pertinent to our discussion. Whether these are improved
by substitution in the sentence "<[M], buster.>" I leave to the reader to
decide -

(Swift) The present argument is the most abstracted that ever I engaged in,
buster.
(Jonson) Prepositions follow sometimes the nouns they are coupled with,
buster.
(Kipling) Too horrible to be trifled with, buster.
and . . .
(Hazlitt) It does for something to talk about, buster.

Sackett of Guernsey
It's raining heavily this morning. Daffodils still golden.

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