I feel free.  John McWhorter has just released my mind from an ingrained belief that I couldn’t end a sentence with a preposition in his essay: Grumpy Grammarian: The Dangling Preposition Myth | New Republic..  You who were schooled around the time I was, when cursive was still graded for its style and clarity, will understand.  Certain rules of grammar were pounded into me.

Later, during my studies of great literature, I was able to let go of some elements of proper grammar for the purpose of conveying feeling and character.  If I don’t need it when I am speaking with others in life then neither do the folks I write about.  I break tons of rules while writing fiction, but when writing professional articles and organizational reports, that last edit for acceptable language always leaves me with dangling prepositions to clean up.  Now, I will try not to worry so much about them.

Oh, and John McWhorter is a fabulous master of language who talks about the idiosyncrasies and ridiculousness of language and people’s reaction to it.  If you love to read like masters dissect their art as much as I do, and you have not heard of him, go go and read.