Prepositions and Pet Peeves

In writing, I have a lot of pet peeves, two of which you read about in a previous post and many of which you’ll read about in future posts. Today, I will type about my latest pet peeve: the fact I developed a pet peeve.

It’s generally considered bad to end a sentence with a preposition. You shouldn’t say “Whom did you go to the party with?” Rather, you should say, “With whom would you have liked to attend the party, had you been invited?”

I never used to care about this rule. A sentence is a sentence, and I can write a sentence any way I want. Like this. That two-word sentence doesn’t contain all the necessary components to be considered a traditional sentence, but it’s my sentence. And I support it. See? I just began a sentence with “And” when I just as easily could’ve included it as part of the previous sentence. This rant is full of examples of sentences that technically aren’t proper and yet I write, wrote and will write many more like them.

Being “proper” doesn’t always make for good writing, which is why I’m cavalier about a lot of these alleged rules. However, one rule is escaping this care-free land: the preposition rule. I used to end sentences with prepositions whenever I wanted. “Who cares? It’s English, and I can use it how I want,” I thought. It was great.

Then, out of nowhere, I realized how horrible such sentences sound. Prepositions closing sentences became one of my many writing-related pet peeves. Worse, I resented myself for developing this pet peeve. Now, I’m trapped in having a pet peeve related to the fact I have a pet peeve.

Oh well. At least I don’t text.*

*Another pet peeve: “Text” is not a verb.