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“Never end a sentence with a preposition!" is a lesson that has nagged me for decades but I try not to stress over.

@kandersonus I've heard that rule is a fossil from 19th century grammarians who were obsessed with making English more like French or Latin. We apparently call them "prepositions" because they really do necessarily come first in phrases in French or Latin, but English doesn't really have prepositions but rather particles that, as particles often do, get their placement by convention. Ditto "split infinitives"...we don't have infinitives. We have an infinitive-marking particle.

Kyle Anderson

@roadriverrail Whoa, I never made the connection to the root meaning of "preposition," probably due to how it's pronounced. Thank you for enlightening!

It crossed my mind that using this grammar "properly" in everyday conversation plainly feels awkward. And that's okay, especially knowing now that it has inorganic origins!

@kandersonus again, this is only what I've heard and not fully confirmed, but it explains where the rule comes from. If you end a sentence with a preposition, then... there's nothing after it, so what does it provide contextual information about? And you're right that rephrasing around that rule makes it sound awkward. You also find you have to start more rigidly using the objective form of nouns, and... you'll see French grammar begin to slide in.