Wednesday, June 6, 2018

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.


More of William Safire’s (tongue in cheek) Rules for Writers:
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

from morguefile.com


I hope some of you are having as much fun with this series as I am.

First of all, you may ask (I did), what exactly IS a linking verb? This source*** says that it’s a verb that can be replaced by a form of the verb “to seem”, as used.

Thus:
*The day looked beautiful.
*The day seemed beautiful.

However, this doesn’t pass the test:

*He looked through the window.
*He seemed through the window.

Or, a verb that can be replaced with a form of “to be”.

Like so:
*Bob feels (is) fine.
*This dress looks (is) too big for you.
*My sandwich tastes (is) spoiled.

Now, should we really never use those verbs at the ends of sentences? Never say never, right? There are places you could use them.

*An explosion went off behind him and he turned around and looked. (I guess “at it” is implied).

This, I think, is a violation.

*I don’t like the way my sandwich tastes.

I’ll welcome any comments or examples you come up with. (I’ll get to that pesky preposition thing in a later post.)

(Barbara Goldstein, Jack Waugh and Karen Linsky, Grammar to Go: How It Works and How To Use It, 3rd ed. Wadsworth, Cengage, 2010)


2 comments:

  1. I had to play in my head with that "I don't like the way this sandwich tastes." example because I can hear myself saying that. But since taste is used there as a verb (instead of a as property of the sandwich - 'the taste of the sandwich') and a sandwich can't taste, it's a violation. Whew. Took me a minute. (I probably shouldn't admit that.)

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  2. I don't like the way my sandwich tastes. I don't like the way my sandwich is. I don't like my sandwich. My sandwich stinks.

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