ending sentences with prepositions

A while back I claimed that I thought the rule about not ending sentences with prepositions was stupid. It has always gotten under my skin because the process of working around this "rule" requires using ridiculously awkward sentences. While I obviously still agree with my earlier assessment, I am a bit wiser on the topic now.

A year or two ago I composed my rationale for why having prepositions at the end of a sentence is not a big deal and I sent it to a few coworkers who care about grammar. While I have since found that my below rationalization is not technically accurate, the following are the arguments I put forth.

From my perspective, the acceptable sentence-ending preposition can come in three forms.

Adverb

In this case the purpose of the preposition is to modify a verb, adjective, or noun. For example, in the sentence below "about" modifies "wrote."

"I am interested in the topic you wrote about."

Rewording the sentence could make it more "correct," but it adds no value to the communication of the idea other than forcing the sentence structure to fit better into the Latin mold. It actually makes the sentence quite awkward. The rewrite would probably look like the following.

"I am interest in the topic about which you wrote."

Broken Prepositional Phrase

In this case the prepositional phrase exists, but the preposition comes after the noun. This probably overlaps the other two forms. In the example below "where" is actually part of the prepositional phrase.

"Where do you come from?"

The fix below is just to move the preposition to the beginning of the prepositional phrase. Do you really believe that the following is an improvement?

"From where do you come?"

Implied Prepositional Phase

In this case the purpose can be described as laziness, but that is still an acceptable rationale in English. The following sentence is an example I found online.

"Get in!"

In this case, this is short for "Get in the car!" Something worth noting is that the grammar gods appear to care about the missing (and implied) prepositional phrase a lot more than the missing (and implied) subject. If you are anal about the missing prepositional phrase, why not require that people utter the sentence as follows?

"You, get in the car!"

It is my opinion that the prepositional phrase rule only exists because this is the way we have always done it. This is how Latin is structured, so this is the mold into which we are going to force English. If those who enforce "right" and "wrong" grammar cared more about usability and communication than fitting within the Latin mold, then this rule would not exist.

I recently listened to an old Grammar Girl podcast episode that addressed the issue in much simpler terms. Most of the time that a preposition is placed at the end of a sentence it is part of a verbal phrase and acts as part of the verb in the sentence rather than as a preposition. So, technically the verb is at the end of the sentence in these cases rather than the preposition.

After all of the effort I put into rationalizing why a preposition at the end of a sentence is acceptable, it is a bit deflating to know that I was right for the wrong reasons. I will claim that I was at least close with my noting that the prepositions often function as adverbs, but I still did not get the explanation correct. At least I am assured now that I have it figured out.

let's talk about us

There are three parts to this post. They could have been standalone blog posts, but they are somewhat related and posting them separately would make it look like I am in a rut.

First Part:

When Golden and I were first married I used to joke a lot about the cliche couple where she wants to talk about "us" and he wants nothing to do with it. I don't know why I found that specific cliche so funny, but I did. In reality, I am the more likely person to want to talk about "us."

I have always felt like my brain didn't really work the same way everyone else's did, so that has made me fascinated with how different people think. Even more so, once I was in a serious relationship then married I was amazed by how we come from completely different angles at things. I grew up my whole life thinking of the female brain as similar to the male brain with just a few preferences wired differently. While Golden and I think alike in a lot of things, our brains are very obviously more foundationally different than a few hardwired preferences.

I feel I have some pretty good reasons for wanting to understand relationships and the differences between men and women. First of all, it only makes sense that I would want to understand Golden and what makes her happy. Second, and almost as important, is the fact that I want to help NJ and CH have healthy relationships when they are old enough, and it has been my observation that the people most unhappy in relationships are among those who least understand the opposite sex.

Because of all of this, I have discovered that one of my recent guilty pleasures has been relationship-oriented books, especially those that discuss the differences between the sexes. The last book I read was actually one that Golden and I did together that I have heard so many other people discuss: The 5 Love Languages. While I found the book fascinating and it did start some very good discussions between Golden and me, I actually felt like I didn't perfectly fit into any of the five love languages discussed. For the purposes of the book I tested as requiring quality time. I did not feel that the description of someone who needs quality time perfectly described me, but I enjoyed going through the book anyway. A guilty pleasure is a guilty pleasure.

I am already figuring out what my next relationship/differences between the sexes book will be after I graduate this May. That's just one of the reasons that I am hopeful for a good summer.

Second Part:

Because I have historically struggled to understand what is romantic I subscribed to the the romantic tip of the week at TheRomantic.com a few months back. I found the website through a book of romance ideas. Since it is a romance mailing list I would expect that mostly men in need of ideas would be on the list. Apparently, I would expect wrong because the mailing a few days ago had an advertisement for a book for women wanting more out of their relationships. The ad intrigued me enough for the reasons that I have already mentioned in this post that I clicked on it and read through the page advertising the book. There is a lot there that I almost posted about, but I decided to limit it to the following slightly reduced paragraph from the website.

"If you're like most women, you probably love talking to your girlfriends about your relationship troubles, and -- yikes! -- asking them for relationship advice... unless she herself has a successful relationship with a man (very important!) -- it's unwise to take relationship advice or tips from your girlfriend (or your mother, sister, cousin or aunt, for that matter)."

I had to post this because, while it is a pretty obvious hard sell, there is one thing in there that is kind of true. No disrespect meant to single folks, but single friends who are the opposite sex of the person you are interested in are rarely the people to turn to for serious relationship advice. The longer you are in a healthy relationship the more accurate a picture you have of what are proper expectations from the relationship. It's next to impossible to give good relationship advice without a clear understanding of what expectations are realistic. Bad advice could very well lead you down either the path of expecting too much or the path of settling for too little.

Third Part:

I cannot count how many marriages I have seen where I think that those two people are fortunate to have found each other because no one else would have put up with (fill in the blank for him) or (fill in the blank for her). I am wondering if this is a cause or an effect. Are people very prone to find others who can deal with their quirks or am I just noticing the quirks that weren't addressed because they weren't that important to the spouse? Even more weird: Are the things that I think are so undesirable actually the same things that attracted their spouse in the first place?

I think wondering about the obvious quirks is probably a bit unfair, though. If I use myself as an example, I would not be overly modest if I were to say that anyone who thinks that I am a catch is either crazy or the one person who married me. Everyone has issues that make them challenging to live with and mine would probably drive most people batty in ways they can only dream. My very last roommate in college told me as I was moving out, "You're a good friend but a horrible roommate. You probably think the same of me." I did.* One of the best things about a good marriage is that you've found someone who will put up with your stuff if you can just find a way to put up with theirs.

* Since former roommates of mine read this blog on occasion I should note that this conversation did not happen with anyone who knows about this blog. I am quite sure that the person who said this wouldn't mind me posting it, though.

cars in the future

I will warn everyone ahead of time that this post is basically my prediction for the future of transportation. I can see that interesting some people and severely boring others. If you are bored by speculation regarding the future of cars, then don't bother reading this post. Don't you wish everything I wrote came with this disclaimer?

Everyone knows that Toyota has been in the news lately for problems with breaking. For people who own a Toyota vehicle this must be a bit nerve-wracking. For some people adamantly against the idea of buying a car assembled in the United States by a non-unionized Japanese company, I think there is a bit of restrained glee (I decided not to use the word "schadenfreude" because the word seems pretentious). While a lot of people have gotten the idea that this proves the reputation of Toyota's manufacturing excellence a farce, I have to disagree.

Since the issues sound like they are due to very quirky behaviors with the software, this has very little to do with Toyota's ability to assemble a quality car. Software development is a whole different world from car development. Because of this, situations like this one with Toyota and future similar incidents are almost inevitable. As long as we rely on large amounts of software to automate functionality in our vehicles, and we will more and more in future years for economic reasons, inevitable defects will appear. Just due to random chance, some will impact important functions such as the car's ability to stop. This is just speculation, but it sounds like automotive software issues are more difficult to diagnose and fix as well because Toyota sounds to me like it is stalling until the software issue is identified and addressed.

As someone who has spent several years devoted to supporting software and interacting with the support staffs of other software companies I feel I have some qualification to compare expected standards for software compared to automotives. Software is typically held to a lower standard. For example, if a defect makes your browser crash and you have to reboot that is irritating, but it is not entirely unexpected. If your car steering fails to function one day while you are on the highway because of a defect that is much more unexpected and serious. While a Windows defect could cause Microsoft customers some pain a defect in a Prius could cost a customer his or her life.

As an example of what I am talking about, part of the reason that the things NASA builds are so expensive is that there is almost no tolerance for defects. It is very difficult to fix something that is millions of miles away, so it has to be nearly perfect. Even with these standards, NASA has had many serious failures over the years with both hardware and software, and I would argue that as stupid as many of the defects were, having them was quite nearly unavoidable. It is likewise unavoidable that some software glitch is going to cause some serious automotive issues that take lives.

I have considered this quite a bit. It only makes sense that the next big advance in automobiles will be self-driving vehicles. Technically, it is close to possible to build a car that can drive itself already. Prototypes have been made, but they are not anywhere near safe enough to use on the road. The technology simply is not mature enough, but most of the remaining research involves details rather than undeveloped technology.

I expect that the technology will start with semi trucks since the drivers can still take over the vehicle from auto-pilot if there are problems. Eventually, though, the technology will become advanced enough that no truck driver will be needed in the vehicle even as an emergency co-pilot. The day that the technology is mature enough to allow for self-driven cars unmonitored by a human will be a good day for consumers because of cheaper shipping, but it will be a very bad day for anyone who makes a living largely based on their having a CDL. On that day school buses will not have drivers, but rather just an adult who keeps order. Domestic airlines will lose a lot of business because it will be easier and cheaper to rent a car equipped with a bed overnight and sleep while the car does the driving than it will be to deal with the hassle of a flight. Hotels that are not destination hotels will be hurt as well for the same reason: That no one will need to stop for a rest midway through their trip. This should also reduce the need to expand roads and lessen our dependence on oil because an automated car uses less gas than a manually driven car does and can drive closer to other vehicles (reducing its road footprint). All of this is almost technically possible now (or at least within five years), but it will probably not happen for the next twenty because of the problems that Toyota is having now.

What I expect will happen is that small bits of automated functionality will be introduced into cars slowly, such as Lexus' automated parallel parking. Even though the current pace of adding automation to cars is relatively slow, it will get even slower because sooner or later another software issue like what Toyota is seeing will appear and another CEO will be called before Congress to get chewed out regarding his inability to fix some issue that no one entirely understands but that is causing random accidents. This will happen a handful of times and each time it does it will slow the deployment of new automated functionality to a standstill.

Eventually, though, the technology will mature and the next generation will tell their kids about the good old days when cars came with steering wheels, gas pedals, and bucket seats. Not only that, we also had to drive barefoot through the snow uphill both ways...

crime and punishment

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."- Proverbs 31:8-9

I don't usually like to say that I am conservative or liberal because, depending on the issue, I can be all over the map. It is probably true that there are a lot more issues where I take a politically conservative position than a liberal one. Perhaps the issue where I am the least politically conservative, though, is as it relates to the criminal justice system. What's odd is that this is probably one of the issues where the conservative position is far more mainstream, what with the popularity of three strikes laws, sex offender registries, and even the death penalty for the most egregious of crimes.

The first reason I tend to be a bit more lax on my views of punishing crime is that I am always hearing stories about people who were wrongly convicted of a crime. One example from the past few months was a man convicted thirty-five years ago for raping a boy only to have DNA evidence exonerate him very recently. Another potential example that showed up in the news today is of a man who was driving his family home from church and his car accelerated into another vehicle, killing three people. He claimed the car accelerated on its own and he could not control it, but the jury did not believe him, so he was convicted in the wrongful death of those three individuals and sentenced to eight years in prison. Now the case is being reviewed because the man was driving a Camry that may have had similar electrical problems that other Toyotas have been having.

I do not know what percentage of people are wrongly incarcerated, but I personally believe it could be as high as ten percent. If that is anywhere near the case, even those who believe crime should be punished harshly have to give pause to the large number of innocents who are likewise going to be punished harshly. It is very easy for me to imagine situations where I would be wrongly accused of some crime and I cannot imagine the devastation that would wreak on my family, so people in prison should be provided dignity and not be punished beyond the level their crime demands if only for the sake of the wrongly convicted. Just as an addendum, if I were elected to high office (not going to happen) I expect that one of my first priorities would be to address the priority issues of the Innocence Project to reduce wrongful convictions.

Let's forget about the people who were wrongfully convicted for a moment, and focus on the 90%-95% (I'm speculating on the percentages) who are rightly convicted and look at the three policies that I mentioned earlier as being popular and a fourth policy that has wavering popularity.

Three Strikes Laws

In the nineties it was en vogue to pass three strikes laws to prove that we as a nation are tough on crime, and looking at a graph of violent crimes over time does imply that something that happened in the early nineties caused the violent crime rate to go down. I would speculate that it is much more related to a reversal of whatever was causing the rate to go up until that point, though, and that such a reversal may have been inevitable. This could be rationalizing in the face of good evidence, so take that with a grain of salt.

Furthermore, I have to believe that three strikes laws are contributing significantly to America's problem of overcrowded prisons. The United States actually has by far the largest per capita prison population in the world. This implies that we either have a more criminal population as a whole or a broken, inefficient, and ineffective system.

Sex Offender Registries

I have young kids, so I understand the appeal of a sex offender registry, but think it must be implemented properly to do good rather than harm. Only sex offenders who, by their crimes, offer a real threat to their neighbors should be included in a registry. An eighteen-year-old who has to register because he got his sixteen-year-old girlfriend pregnant probably is just adding clutter and administrative hurdles to actually protecting kids. Also, I have yet to hear anyone properly address what I think of as the nuclear waste issue of sex offender registries. No one wants them in their back yard, so they have nowhere to go and may be forced into a life of crime again. Either that, or they are forced to become concentrated into low-income areas so that, if they actually do present a threat, the threat is now greatly magnified for kids in poor families.

I am not going to pretend that I have a better way of handling sex offenders to present, but I do think that there is a better way out there that I simply have not discovered.

The Death Penalty

I have always favored the death penalty, largely because it figured strongly in the Old Testament. If the death penalty was fine for Israel it is fine for the United States. While I still favor the death penalty in extreme cases where the criminal's guilt is unquestioned, I believe those specific cases are rare. As one executioner I read about stated, "If you let the [jury] foreman be the executioner, then I think they'd give a second thought about execution. If you let the judge be the executioner, I think he would give a second thought about sending somebody to be executed." It is easy to support the death penalty in all violent murder convictions when you aren't the one to flip the switch and end the person's life.

Pardons

Specifically, I do not think that Mike Huckabee (or any other governor in a similar situation) was in the wrong to pardon a man who would later commit a violent crime. For all of the due diligence in the world some people who are going to commit more crimes are going to slip through the cracks. That should not handcuff executive leaders' ability to release people who appear to have been given too harsh a sentence.

Recidivism

What do you expect is going to happen to the guy who can't make ends meet because he can't get a job because he has a criminal record? If you want to reduce crime, you have to make it possible for former criminals to make a living so that they have the choice to not go back to their old habits.

Virtues and Vices

It took me long enough to get to it. I see much more in Scripture that would lead me to believe that we should take a more compassionate perspective on those convicted of crimes than that we should punish criminals as heavily as possible. Even the desire for revenge that drives so much of the crime legislation is specifically opposed by Scripture (Rom 12:17-21). I could go on, but I think I have said enough already.

heroes or villains

I have seen most of the episodes of Survivor. The main appeal to me is that it is like people watching on steroids. One thing that doesn't appeal to me, though, is that the show is designed to bring out the worst in people.

This season the gimmick is that people who have been on the show in past seasons have been brought back to play either on a heroes team or a villains team. People who have done darker things when they played before are on the villains team and people who have been more likable are on the heroes team. While I understand the compelling narrative this will create for this season of the show, all I think it will do is prove that heroic, or even altruistic, behavior is not rewarded in the game and the people who have been edited to look heroic really aren't.

Even avoiding the fact that this use of the word "Hero" dilutes its true meaning (which is actually the topic of another post I have been mulling), most of the people who look like good people on the show and who do well can either thank the way the show was edited or thank the fact that people will usually forgive behavior they can see themselves committing. It is next to impossible to get far in the game, let alone win it, without lying or stabbing someone in the back. Most of the people who look like they kept their morals intact only appear that way because they allowed others to do the dirty work. By my personal standard that makes them complicit in the behavior.

While in my less sane moments I have wondered what it would be like to be on the show, I could never actually be on it. At some point I would have to make a moral choice about how dishonest or even malicious I would be willing to be to win the million dollars. I think that I would retain my morals, but part of me is scared I wouldn't. In Survivor: Fiji one of the contestants who was known as "Dreamz" famously went back on his word on a major deal with another player and later claimed it was a part of strategy. My impression of the situation is that Dreamz started with honorable intentions but eventually rationalized that the chance at $1 million was worth backstabbing. That one incident in particular is the one that most makes me believe that the show really is about compromising one's morals to win the game.

Some people will argue that Survivor is only a game, so being less than noble is a valid and acceptable strategy, but I believe that is a slippery slope at best. Where is the line of acceptable behavior? If lying is acceptable because it's a game is becoming physically involved with another player with the sole intent of moving forward in the game? Is physically harming another player acceptable? You could say that physically harming someone impacts their life outside the game, but I have to believe that getting stabbed in the back by someone he or she trusted also impacts a person's life outside the game. Honestly, if it really is true that morals don't apply because it is only a game, then the better player really is the one who does do the sketchier things if those things get him or her further in the game.

It is for this reason that Survivor is my second favorite reality show rather than my first. I like my favorite, The Amazing Race, because playing dirty is less of a benefit, and actually frequently a detriment, to the player or team involved. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy seeing how the different social situations and the narrative of the show work in Survivor. I just enjoy a show more when I can feel like an honest person doesn't automatically have the deck stacked against him or her.

sexism in commercials

I have been considering a post on feminism, reactions to feminism, and it's impacts on men and women in the church world and the culture at large at some point in the future. My thinking is that people's views on gender impact their impressions of just about everything. I think that most contentious issues owe some contentiousness on some level to conflicting gender views, even if the contentious issue does not appear at first glance to be a gender-sensitive issue. That is something that I will probably put together in a few months though, and I only mention that because I was reminded that I had been thinking about it recently when I saw some of the commercials during the Super Bowl.

To this point I have heard more than one observation that some of the commercials during this past Super Bowl were sexist. Interestingly, I heard people complain both directions that the commercials were either slanted against men or women. I thought I would share a few of the commercials and my opinions of them in regard to how they portray the genders.

Also, something that I would like to note is that I am analyzing these things to death. I am not really offended by any of the commercials mentioned below, but I am very interested by the reactions some of them draw, and I get quite a bit of pleasure working through whether I agree with those reactions.

Since it seems to be the most prevalent type of commercial, I have to note the commercials that imply that men only have one thing on their minds. I am in the camp that thinks this type of commercial is mildly sexist as it pushes a specific stereotype on men. Since many men have found ways to benefit from this sexism, I think I am in the minority who are irritated by it. The Megan Fox commercial and the GoDaddy commercials define this category. Instead of posting them below, though, I decided to go with the more subtle and funny Doritos commercial that only implies that one specific man has less than honorable intentions.



Next, there were two commercials that I saw as remarkably similar. They are the Dove and Charger ads below. I actually really appreciated the ads, though I didn't find them overly funny. The dove one is probably the less controversial of the two as it just goes through the things that pressure men through life, but that also establish his manhood in our culture, so that he does not have to feel feminine for using Dove body wash. Of course, an easier strategy for Dove could have been to re-brand the body wash to a more masculine name, but that's just me.



I understand why someone might think that the following ad has a tinge of sexism against women because the commercial implies that the man's role in a relationship is a chore, so that is why he should be able to purchase a Charger for himself. At the worst, this is only mildly sexist, though, and it really is a good strategy to sell a very masculine car that is anything but practical.



The Bridgestone commercial was certainly mildly sexist, but it is also a joke that has been done to death. Seriously, this is basically the equivalent of the, "Take my wife... please," joke that is as cliched a cliche as I have ever seen.



The commercial that always seems to get mentioned in regard to sexism against women is the following one. No doubt, this is a dysfunctional relationship being portrayed. While I am on the fence about how I feel about this, I am leaning toward the position that it is anti-relationship enough to be a problem. I do see how this would appeal to a lot of men and sell a lot of FloTVs, though.



I have saved the best for last. The following E*Trade commercial again shows a dysfunctional relationship and implies that men can't be trusted. It is still rather funny, though.



In short, I understand how some of the commercials can be viewed as having sexist implications, but at the same time most of them are relatively mild. I see more of attacks on relationships in general in these than attacks on one specific gender, though that is not necessarily any better.

So, what do you think? Were the Super Bowl commercials sexist in some way or were they more benign?

intelligence

These are just a few random thoughts I have about intelligence. Some is a rehash of what I have already said. That will happen on occasion, though.

For the longest time I thought I was naturally intelligent. I remember the first time my arrogance subsided and I realized that this wasn't the case. The summer I turned fifteen I was at a church youth camp where different cabins competed in a Bible quiz tournament throughout the week. While I was undoubtedly the geekiest in the cabin (most of the other guys were skaters), I was actually the intellectual liability on our team. That was a difficult thing for me to swallow. It only occurred to me later that whatever academic strength I have is not natural intelligence. My one real intellectual strength is that there are some things that I happen to care about more than other people do so I think through them a lot. In those fields where I do not have enough interest to expend much thought I am dumber than the screws holding a doorknob in place.

Another epiphany I had about intelligence was in college. I realized that many of the people who, by participation in class or by GPA or by whatever other outward measure, appeared smart were actually putting on a show, and this was a very large percentage of the "smart" people. While most people who get good grades and participate in class are intelligent, that intelligence has a limit and a lot of people have found ways to keep from inadvertently looking stupid. This does not describe every intellectual person I know, but it is pretty prevalent. It is assisted by the fact that people are more likely to equate shows of confidence with intelligence than they are to equate much anything else with intelligence. Confidently use a lot of words that people think they should know but don't and your reputation is made. Any "average" person can get a brainy reputation without too much real effort.

My latest revelation has been that there really are not many things that are difficult to understand if you have enough time to learn them. Math isn't hard. Mathematical notation is just intimidating and is usually poorly explained. English and grammar aren't hard. They are just mind-numbing for most people to try to study. None of the sciences are all that difficult to understand once you're past all of the vast rote memorization that is required. The field I chose was no different. Computer Science has some key concepts that must be understood, but the notation is what makes the field seem hard.

To sum all of this up, throughout my life I have been struck more by how similar supposedly stupid people and supposedly intelligent people are than by their differences. In many cases they follow the same logic in life. They make the same mistakes. They have the same recreations. In fact, I believe that most differences in apparent intelligence can be traced back to a question of interest or learning style rather than natural intelligence. You will go far in the American education system if you happen to do well sitting at a desk with someone lecturing to you. If you do not do well with lectures and multiple-choice tests, the decision will be made that you are somehow inferior and you will be shut out of a lot of the options in life that require traditional education. I have already been fairly clear on my opinions about education, so I should end my rant here.

I say all of this as someone who has actually benefited from the system in place. I tend to get good grades because I tend to be academically minded, so in that setting I can appear smarter than I am. A system that uses bad methods to determine whether kids are smart, though, should be corrected.