Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamWriter
sentences ending in prepositions (exceptions might be dialogue)
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Actually, ending sentences in prepositions is
not incorrect. Neither is splitting an infinitive, by the way. Both "rules" date to misguided grammarians' attempts at making English function like Latin, which they believed had perfect grammar. Aside from the question of whether Latin grammar is perfect or merely annoying, it's not English grammar, and English can no more be hammered into a Latin mold than Russian can be made to follow Spanish. Since infinitives can't be split in Latin, the "rule" was made that they shouldn't be split in English, and likewise the users of prepositions were supposed to ignore centuries of perfectly correct English usage and follow a Latin model. Which, of course, leads us to Winston Churchill's (reputed) reply to an editor: "This is an outrage up with which I shall not put." Here's
one explanation.
I have a bit of a peeve with people who sell live fish: They firmly believe in a rule of "one inch of fish to one gallon of water" as the revealed truth, and I've had one refuse to sell me a dozen guppies to put in a 10-gallon tank ... despite the fact, ironically enough, that they would be catching them out of a store tank with at least ten times that stocking level. It was the only rule they knew, probably the only rule they'd ever learned, and I doubt if they knew
why it was a rule, but it was all they had, so they stuck to it like death. The people who teach the myths about trailing prepositions and split infinitives are the same way:
they don't know why the "rule" exists, but they learned it somewhere (probably from someone who didn't know either) and by God they're going to enforce it, because without understanding, rote rules are all they have.
But you can go ahead and break it. Those really
aren't the droids you're looking for. In fact, if you try to move that preposition and say "those aren't the droids for which you're looking" the result just looks stiff and awkward. Formality is a good thing, but the formality imposed by prescriptive Latin grammarians and ill-educated 19th-century schoomasters is something we can do without.
As for
homophone and
homonym: "same sound" or "same name"? Look at their roots, at their meanings, and it becomes obvious which one you want. The problem is with words like "their" and "they're" that have the same
sound, so they're homophones.
There are a lot of websites which can help with grammar in general and the comma thing in particular. For abused words, I like
Common Errors in English. Here's a good one for
commas. Nothing, however, can replace a real understanding of the words you're using, any more than a set of rules ("always use a 17mm open-end wrench on these nuts") can replace a deep understanding of your tools in any other field. You have to know not just what the rules are but what the tools are -- what they do, how they do it, and how to use them to make them do what you want. Otherwise, well, you confuse
homonym and
homophone, put commas between every adjective so your sentences look like laundry lists, and hyphenate numerals wherever you find them, because you think you remember seeing something like that done once, and you're really just guessing.
Oh, as for the fish: The one-inch rule is roughly appropriate for medium-sized fish the setups that were common at the time it was made: bare tanks with gravel and an air-driven corner filter (pretty much the weakest filtration out there). You get totally different conditions in, say, a tank with a canister filter (look at how many fish your typical pet store puts in its display tanks with their massive filtration), and plants are veritable nitrate sponges. And it's really weight, not length: ten one-inch tetras are not equivalent to one ten-inch Oscar. Species matters, too: goldfish are far dirtier than their weight in cichlids. Saltwater tanks can't handle nearly as much as freshwater tanks. Guppies can live and breed happily in a bucket; discus need super-pure water. Etc., ad infinitum. What the fools selling fish
don't get is the proper care and feeding of de-nitrifying bacteria, so while they're hung up on their inch-and-gallon rule, they'll cheerfully sell someone five two-inch fish to put in a brand-new, uncycled tank, and that
is a prescription for dead fish. It's really all about keeping your bacteria happy. And English is the same way. Know your tools, not just some rules.