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Author Topic: Translations of the Bible: Food for Thought  (Read 1239 times)
JudgeNot
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« on: February 17, 2004, 06:25:05 PM »

Did you ever wonder why some older translations of the Bible can be hard to follow until you get accustomed to the grammar?  The following helps to explain just one of the many reasons.  I thought it was interesting – just food for thought:

Myth: Never End a Sentence with a Preposition
The notion that ending a sentence with a preposition is grammatical heresy was originally advanced more than three centuries ago by the venerated English poet and essayist John Dryden. Dryden, a Latin scholar, based his view on the fact that prepositions are never found at the end of sentences written in Latin. And given Dryden's reputation, it is no surprise that his sentiments forged their way into the grammar texts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and eventually into the grammar classrooms of the twentieth century.
But here's the problem. Neither Dryden nor the grammarians who promoted his views envisioned the extent to which many of the most commonly used prepositions-- or, to, in, about, over, of, etc.--would hook up with verbs to become common idioms. Nor did they take into account the awkwardness that results when you run one of these verb-preposition idioms through the never-end-a-sentence-with-a-preposition wringer.
Examples:
- Ophelia is someone everybody looks up to.
- Ophelia is someone up to whom everybody looks.

- What are you talking about?
- About what are you talking?

Or the often-quoted Winston Churchill retort:

- This is the sort of impertinence up with which I will not put.

 Source: Grammar for Smart People by Barry Tarshis
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