Princess MoMo’s Tavern Toilet Talk

Posted by Princess MoMo on May 3 in Adventures of Princess MoMo, Grammar

Princess MoMo’s bladder required relief.  She moseyed to the restroom in the drinking establishment.  After waiting in the inevitable line, MoMo entered the stall.  She sat her royal ass upon the toilet throne.  In the stall next to MoMo, an individual was loudly describing her distaste for another female to her friend.   One of her statements was, “I don’t give a fuck where she lives at.”  MoMo’s ears cringed.  Being the grammatical giver that she is, MoMo let her voice be heard.  She said from within the commode cubicle, “Can I tell you something? You cannot end a sentence in a preposition that way.”[1]

 

This incited the anger of the neighboring talking tinkler.  She stated, “I’ll end it anyway I want to.”  MoMo said, “You see, you just did it again.  That’s just wrong.”  MoMo exited the stall to greet this grammar offender, who was, and had, pissed at this point.  MoMo calmed her down and explained that she was doing her a favor.  Persuaded by MoMo’s peace offering, the preposition abuser listened as MoMo articulated that rather than stating, “I don’t give a fuck where she lives at,” the proper sentence formation is, “I don’t give a fuck where she lives.”  The newly enlightened one thanked Princess MoMo and noted that she is an English Literature major and therefore, she appreciated MoMo’s restroom language lesson all the more. 

[1] MoMo is not a stickler on the “don’t end your sentence in a preposition” rule, but this was a particularly egregious grammatical error because the “at” didn’t even appropriately belong in the sentence, regardless of its position therein.  (You may be thinking, “What a hypocrite this MoMo is.  She just ended the sentence in a preposition (therein).” But no, that thought is wrong.  “Therein” is an adverb in that sentence.)

 

comments: 1 »

One Response to “Princess MoMo’s Tavern Toilet Talk”

  1. El_Sur says:
    13 May 2011 at 4:31 AM

    Well, actually, you can end a sentence with a preposition so long as the meaning is understood by the context of the sentence, and as long as said meaning isn’t redundant. Yes, in this case, your tinkle partner used it improperly (because of the redundancy in her statement), but not because she ended it with a preposition. The rules are not the same anymore, and most English scholars feel that phrasing a sentence to not end with a preposition makes it sound stilted. An analog to this would be having a double space after a full stop. Just sayin’. :-)