Re: “Stranded prepositions”
G still isn't a complete sentence.
The cheerfulness with which she spoke of the sad contrasts of her life ...
Re: “Stranded prepositions”
Quote:
Originally Posted by
emsr2d2 
It is unfair to accuse us of trying to get out of answering questions. We happily answer questions about the English language. Unfortunately, your piece had all the hallmarks of a piece of homework - we are frequently given lists of questions to answer and it turns out that it was homework and the student hands in our work instead of their own.
We will always ask a student to give us their answers first and then we comment.
Regarding your original list of sentences, only G is incorrect, because it is not a complete sentence. H will be fine if you remove "through".
Thanks. And sorry about what I said before.
Re: “Stranded prepositions”
Quote:
Originally Posted by
emsr2d2 G still isn't a complete sentence.
The cheerfulness with which she spoke of the sad contrasts of her life ...
How about this:
The cheerfulness with which she spoke of the sad contrasts of her life was infectious.
Re: “Stranded prepositions”
Quote:
Originally Posted by
High on grammar How about this:
The cheerfulness with which she spoke of the sad contrasts of her life was infectious.
That's absolutely fine!
Re: “Stranded prepositions”
Quote:
Originally Posted by
High on grammar Regarding (e) and (f)
e. what do you eat salad without?
f. what do you eat salad with?
Here is the answer I received from a native speaker who is apparently an English language expert (I am not sure):
"What do you eat salad with?" is a perfectly decent question. It could be asking after either salad ingredients or salad sides. So, "I eat salad with bread" or "I eat salad with sunflower seeds and Italian dressing" would both work as answers to that question.
"What do you eat salad without?" is a question that I would expect someone to ask only in jest or ridicule. It doesn't seem to be a straightforward, literal question about what the interlocutor does not have in or along with his salad when he eats salad.
It seems instead to be a rhetorical question. Perhaps you have observed that your interlocutor seems to put just about everything in his salad, or
to eat salad with all kinds of other dishes. In that context, "What do you eat your salad without?" would be a rhetorical comment (almost an exclamation) about all those other salad accoutrements, as it were. And "without" would likely be emphasized.
That's one possibility, but you could also use the question if you are about to make a salad and know that someone has a particular dislike but cannot remember what. It's not a very good question and there are more natural ways of asking this, but you're trying to strand prepositions here and contexts can be dredged up for very unlikely things.
