Winston churchill with which i will not put

The text concerned was variously a book manuscript, a speech, an article, or a government document. Ben Zimmer has presented evidence on the alt. Since Churchill often contributed to The Strand , Zimmer argues, it would certainly have identified him if he had been the official in question. It is not clear how the anecdote came to be attributed to Churchill by Gowers, but it seems to have circulated independently earlier.

Back to list of errors. Here is just a sample of the variations circulating on the Net: That is a rule up with which I will not put. This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put. We have been mislead yet again by the internet well, it actually started with newspapers and such.

What I like best about this quote, however, is how it shows the humor long associated with this debate. All that aside, it might also remind you of some traditional blonde jokes and various other forms of a tongue-in-cheek protest of this Latin rule. This is the format of the Winston Churchill story which is apparently false , several versions set in the military, and more. The image is pretty self-explanatory ish. Granted, my doctors look nothing like the Queen of Hearts, didn't visit my home which doesn't have wallpaper , and didn't remove all of my head.

But, … [Read More Sorry for the break in posts - work's a bit crazy right now. So here's our cat playing in packing paper to look at until I can get caught up! Recently I had a note from a colleague in London quoting the story then going the rounds of a devastating retort made by the Prime Minister.

To a long and flatulent report, he is said to have appended the following minute:. In this instance of the tale an officer in the Navy berated a lower-ranked script writer because he had written a sentence ending with a preposition: The performer, an officer, went into a tirade about his script.

In civilian life all I could do was bawl you out. But here such work as this, imagine ending a sentence with a preposition, is a violation of orders and rank insubordination. It is rank insubordination. Up with which you should not have to put. On February 28, a story about Churchill was printed in several newspapers based on a cable report transmitted from London.

It is possible that zealous newspaper copy editors did not quite understand the intended humor and modified the text. So once again any joke about avoiding the terminal placement of prepositions was undermined.

On March 4, the Ottawa Citizen attempted to reconstruct the quip. But the newspaper did not attribute the funny line to Churchill. Instead, the paper indicated that Churchill should have used the phrase but did not: Churchill said. Yet the joke remained incomplete because the prefatory remark was omitted: He had been presented with a ponderous legal report, in which the plain meaning shone obscurely through many a whereas, whereof and wherefore.

Churchill did his duty and read the report. Wherefore such stuff up with which I will not put. On October 27, a paper in Lethbridge, Alberta printed a uniquely scrambled statement and credited the words to Churchill. Churchill was not the only famous person to be featured in the tale. On January 21, the influential newspaper columnist Walter Winchell told a variant with the popular heartthrob Rudy Vallee complaining to a script writer about preposition placement: The Funnies: Rudy Vallee Still going big as he did a decade ago now and then gets into a pet with his script writers.

He ranted and raved about ending a sentence with a preposition. The chief scripter just sat and stared at him. That is something up with which you should not have to put.