Lessons Learned

It seems that the school-age rule I learned about not ending a sentence with a preposition is incorrect. According to the Chicago Manual of Style, a sentence can end in a preposition. I just recently discovered this, but unfortunately, I had already passed on some misinformation to my son. He is in the seventh grade and wrote a report on Ancient West Africa for school. He received an A and brought it him to show me. I was happy about the good grade but was curious about his work and so I read through the report. It was well done but I pointed out a few punctuation mistakes that his teacher had missed. I also commented on the incorrect use of a preposition at the end of the sentence shown here.

After I learned this bit of information about prepositions, I had to eat my words. I went back to him and told him I had made a mistake and that, in fact, there are instances when it grammatically correct to end a sentence with a preposition.

So in the end it was a lesson for both of us. One he learned much earlier than I did.