Grammatical grumblings

In Hebrew today, we were discussing the relative pronoun and the construction used when the relative needs a preposition, such as "Herodotus is an author about whom I get very excited." In Hebrew, you can't put a preposition in front of the relative, so, rather than saying "about whom I get very excited" you say "whom I get very excited about him" (which I personally think is freaking cool). Now you may be saying to yourself, "I would never say '...about whom I get excited', because that's lame. I would say 'who I get excited about'". And so we come to the age old problem of prepositions hanging around at the ends of sentences. I personally, preferring descriptive rather than prescriptive grammar within certain reasonable limits, think people get way too worked up about this issue, and it seems to me that our language is changing such that, in spoken English, prepositions at the ends of sentences should get the grammatical thumbs-up.

Some people disagree. One such person is apparently in my Hebrew class. (Well, to be fair, it's entirely likely that this person doesn't care one way or the other, or actually agrees with me, and either way was just trying to be funny...anyway.) While we were discussing the Hebrew, this person said the following: dangling participles are something up with which I will not put.

... ... ...

I have two major problems with this. First, whatever the original was and whoever actually said or wrote it, the idea that a sentence ending in "up with which I will not put" could ever be grammatically condoned is disturbing, and only furthers the argument that some grammatical rules are meant to be stretched or even broken. Or, more precisely, there are some situations (like compound verbs, which contain a preposition or two, e.g., "to put up with") which on the surface look like they're breaking grammatical rules, but in fact aren't, and people should look into the detail a little more before they go "correcting" things to end up with phrases like "up with which I will not put".

Second, and closer to my heart, is this "dangling participles" issue. I myself struggle with dangling participles. I am working through it, and I do think I'm getting better. At least I know I have a problem, and that is, as they say, half the battle. Having worked through it for awhile now, I think I can use my experiences to help others, and perhaps even have a responsibility to do so. A major part of the problem in awareness. Many people don't know what dangling participles are. In addition, because, I believe, of the fame of the above-mentioned pseudo-Churchill quote, they assume that the prepositions at the ends of sentences "dangle" and that "dangling participles" must refer to that problem. But a participle is far, far away from being a preposition, and when they dangle, oh, do they dangle. So, let's just clear a few things up, shall we?

Exempla:

a) Having stopped at a gas station on the way home from the store, the ice cream melted and made the back seat of my car sticky.

b) Which class are you reading Pindar for?

In example a), "having stopped" is a participle. The subject of the main clause is "the ice cream". The thing which has stopped is, presumably, me (not the ice cream). Unfortunately for this sentence, that is not made clear. The participle has no subject, and is therefore not properly connected to the main clause. Things that aren't properly connected dangle.

In example b), the question ends with "for". "For" is a preposition (and not a part of a compound verb). Prepositions don't dangle. They end sentences, but we're told they're not supposed to do so.

Example a) could turn into a grammatically correct sentence like so: Having stopped at a gas station on the way home from the store, I ate the ice cream so it wouldn't melt. Or: Since I stopped at the gas station, the ice cream melted and made my car sticky.
Or some such variation on gas stations, ice cream, and sticky cars. (Remind me never to write a book. Ever.)

Example b) ...isn't that important. I like prepositions, and I think they should go wherever they damn well please (in spoken language or non-academic writing), as long as the meaning is clear. Also, I don't want to write any more about Pindar.

What have we learned from this? If you use a participle, or participial phrase, in a sentence (which you should, because they make life more interesting), please make sure it has a subject. If you use prepositions at the ends of sentences, do it proudly. If you quote a saying that has grammatical implications and think you're being terribly clever, make sure you know what you're talking about.

Well, I feel better, and I hope you do too. Maybe I should go do some work.