Grammar

February 6th, 2025 — A Writer's Life

I would like to send, to those in charge,
A most important small petition.
From time to time, I would like to end
My sentence with a preposition.

In the words of Winston Churchill,
When he at last put down his foot,
“That’s one rule of the English language,
Up with which I will not put!”

Ruth is constantly after me about my grammar. She got a new program for her computer that doesn’t like my punctuation or my grammar. I try to explain that poets can take certain liberties with both but it’s difficult to argue with either a computer or a wife and win!

Someone even wrote to me from Australia, offering to help me with my punctuation. So far I have been able to resist all temptation to change my poetry in order to comply with the rules of the English language. My most ‘unfavorite’ rule is the one that says you can’t use a preposition to end a sentence with.

Winston Churchill must have felt the same way and I used a quote, attributed to him, as the basis for Grammar.