What was he jealous? Do i use jealous with of?

[scott833]

1) What was he jealous of?
2) What was it that he was jealous of?

 

[emsr2d2]

1) What was he jealous of?
2) What was it that he was jealous of?

They're both acceptable but the second is unnecessarily long. I'd use the first. There might be a purist out there who says it should be "Of what was he jealous?" but you will hear sentence 1 much more often.

 

[BobK]

They're both acceptable but the second is unnecessarily long. I'd use the first. There might be a purist out there who says it should be "Of what was he jealous?" but you will hear sentence 1 much more often.

I have no personal feelings about prepositions at the end of sentences; in fact I encourage their use. And I feel the self-conscious 'correctness' of starting a question with 'Of what...' is faintly ridiculous.

But if you did want to avoid that final 'of' you could just say 'What made her jealous?'

b