You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

Manfred comments on Stupid Questions June 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Gondolinian 31 May 2015 02:14AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (195)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Manfred 02 June 2015 08:43:34PM 2 points [-]

If you say "This is some stuff I hate to put up with," and someone complains about your sentence ending in a preposition, I think the correct rephrasing is "This is some stuff I hate to put up with, you asshole." But here are some more serious answers:

"Stuff I hate to put up with" does not end with a preposition - "put up with" is functioning as a compound verb here. It's like saying "Popsicles I hate to lick." Anyone who hassles anyone about this should refer to paragraph one.

"I don't want to exercise, but I have to" becomes (if one wants to follow this arbitrary rule, which, to reiterate, one needn't) "I don't want to exercise, but I have to exercise," or alternately, "Though I have to, I don't want to exercise."

Comment author: Bound_up 02 June 2015 09:05:32PM 0 points [-]

It is specifically to demonstrate the absurdity of the rule that I wish to phrase more nearly (and technically correctly) like my last example there, serving to obscure rather than clarify communication.

Comment author: Lumifer 02 June 2015 08:55:04PM 0 points [-]

I think the correct rephrasing is "This is some stuff I hate to put up with, you asshole."

And you can refer him to the authority of the Language Log post. I should note that involves zombies, X nazis, and "Latin-obsessed 17th century introverts" X-D