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Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / April 2004Which one is correct?
Once I want to ask someone from which university she graduated, so I use: "From which university you graduated?" But then I realized this sounds a little awkward, so should I use: "Which university you graduated from?" instead? Thanks, Bill Bonde ( Not the man who knows everything, just the man who knows the important things ) - 20 Apr 2004 00:52 GMT > Once I want to ask someone from which university she graduated, so I use: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > instead? "Which university did you graduate from?" Bill Bonde ( Not the man who knows everything, just the man who knows the important things ) writes: > "Which university did you graduate from?" Ideally: "From which university were you graduated?" Traditionally, schools graduated students (conferred degrees or other credentials upon them); students themselves did not graduate intransitively. Today, though, students can graduate, too (instead of just _being_ graduated).  SignatureTranspose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. Mxsmanic wrote on 20 Apr 2004: > Bill Bonde ( Not the man who knows everything, just the man who > knows the important things ) writes: [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > "From which university were you graduated?" Whose "ideal" is this? It's definitely stilted and broomstick-up-the- a.s English, AFAIC. Not my ideal at all. "What university did you graduate from?" is perfectly formal and perfectly understandable and perfectly normal for reasonable speakers. > Traditionally, schools graduated students (conferred degrees or > other credentials upon them); students themselves did not graduate > intransitively. Today, though, students can graduate, too > (instead of just _being_ graduated). So why isn't "By which university were you graduated?" your ideal? SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor. For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper. > Mxsmanic wrote on 20 Apr 2004: > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > So why isn't "By which university were you graduated?" your ideal? Maybe that verb is used in a slightly different way on each side of the pond? ;) Oxford ALD has the transitive sense as "AmE" http://www.oup.com/elt/oald/ graduate <...> [VN] ~ sb (from sth) (AmE) to give a degree, DIPLOMA, etc. to sb: The college graduated 50 students last year. Another British English dictionary, the Cambridge ALD, has no transitive sense for "graduate". American English dictionaries, Merriam-Webster Online and American Heritage, have both the transitive and intransitive senses. Just my 2¢ SignatureEnrico C Enrico C wrote on 20 Apr 2004: >> Mxsmanic wrote on 20 Apr 2004: >> [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > > Just my 2¢ Is this mxsmaniac a Brit? I thought he was a Yank. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor. For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper. > Enrico C wrote on 20 Apr 2004: > [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] >> > Is this mxsmaniac a Brit? I thought he was a Yank. For a moment I thought the other way round, i.e. that you, CyberCypher, were a Brit. Now I recall you are not, IIRC :) My bad! SignatureEnrico C News: www.40tude.com/dialog - Mail: www.ritlabs.com/the_bat Local News/Mail Server: http://tglsoft.de/misc/hamster_en.htm > Enrico C wrote on 20 Apr 2004: > [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] >> > Is this mxsmaniac a Brit? I thought he was a Yank. please... Django Cat wrote on 21 Apr 2004: [...] >> Is this mxsmaniac a Brit? I thought he was a Yank. > please... I'm all for giving him to Kim Jong Il. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor. For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper. > Whose "ideal" is this? It is a longstanding principle in English that sentences ending in prepositions should be avoided, although such constructions have been common for almost as long. > It's definitely stilted and broomstick-up-the- > a.s English, AFAIC. It doesn't look that way to me. I suppose it depends on the circles within which one normally moves. > Not my ideal at all. "What university did you > graduate from?" is perfectly formal and perfectly understandable and > perfectly normal for reasonable speakers. Sure, but it's not as perfect as the construction I gave. > So why isn't "By which university were you graduated?" your ideal? It's just as acceptable. SignatureTranspose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. >>Whose "ideal" is this? > > It is a longstanding principle in English that sentences ending in > prepositions should be avoided, although such constructions have been > common for almost as long. This is utter bullshit. Prepositions at teh end of sentences are as old as English. Latinising grammarians in the 17th and 18th century tried to shoehorn english grammar into the model fo their perfect model latin, but english refuses to fit into this model - precisely because it isn't Latin. Do the following judgement of Franke is absolutely correct. >>It's definitely stilted and broomstick-up-the- >>a.s English, AFAIC. > > It doesn't look that way to me. I suppose it depends on the circles > within which one normally moves. You seem to move in some rather strange circles - considering some of the things you've said recently I think you'd probably get on like a house on fire with those German English teachers I mentioned earlier who regard American English as a barbarous dialect. >>Not my ideal at all. "What university did you >>graduate from?" is perfectly formal and perfectly understandable and >>perfectly normal for reasonable speakers. > > Sure, but it's not as perfect as the construction I gave. This is pure subjectivism - it's got no basis in English grammar whether considered historically or in its contemporary form. >>So why isn't "By which university were you graduated?" your ideal? > > It's just as acceptable. A purely American usage - in British English the verb "graduate" is usually intransitive. Einde O'Callaghan > This is utter bullshit. Prepositions at teh end of sentences are as old > as English. Read what I wrote. SignatureTranspose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. Mxsmanic wrote on 20 Apr 2004: >> This is utter bullshit. Prepositions at teh end of sentences are >> as old as English. > > Read what I wrote. You don't write well enough to make yourself clear. Perhaps you ought to find a writing teacher. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor. For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper. > You don't write well enough to make yourself clear. I write very well indeed, compared to most Anglophones. > Perhaps you ought to find a writing teacher. And stop teaching myself? SignatureTranspose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. Mxsmanic wrote on 21 Apr 2004: >> You don't write well enough to make yourself clear. > > I write very well indeed, compared to most Anglophones. Even if you have to say so yourself. >> Perhaps you ought to find a writing teacher. > > And stop teaching myself? Especially. SignatureFranke: EFL teacher & medical editor. For email, ehziuh htiw rehpycrebyc ecalper. > Even if you have to say so yourself. This is what I've been told. > Especially. You don't want anyone who disagrees with you to teach? SignatureTranspose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. >>This is utter bullshit. Prepositions at teh end of sentences are as old >>as English. > > Read what I wrote. I was referring to the first part of your sentence, to wit: "It is a longstanding principle in English that sentences ending in prepositions should be avoided", which is utter bullshit. This was an opinion originally voiced by a group of grammarians who felt that Latin was a perfect language and English should become more like Latin. It has been parroted by subsequent generations of "teachers" too lazy to develop their own opinions based on the actual history and development of the English language. You seem to be one of them. Einde O'Callaghan > I was referring to the first part of your sentence, to wit: "It is a > longstanding principle in English that sentences ending in > prepositions should be avoided", which is utter bullshit. You're saying that teachers only began to recommend this in January? > This was an opinion originally voiced by a group of > grammarians who felt that Latin was a perfect language > and English should become more like Latin. Sure, but that happened a long time ago. > It has been parroted by subsequent generations of "teachers" > too lazy to develop their own opinions based on the actual > history and development of the English language. You seem > to be one of them. No, I simply make an observation. I do prefer to avoid putting prepositions at the end of a sentence if possible, but I don't tell students that this is forbidden, nor do I even say that they should avoid it. I see much worse in coursebooks. Yesterday I taught a lesson that attempted to teach many highly questionable "differences" between infinitives and -ing forms following verbs. Sorry, but there isn't really any practical difference between "I started to talk" and "I started talking," no matter what the coursebook says, and I told students this. (There are a few exceptions, mentioned in the lesson, but most of the lesson was bogus, and I told students so.) SignatureTranspose hotmail and mxsmanic in my e-mail address to reach me directly. >>>Whose "ideal" is this? >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > english grammar into the model fo their perfect model latin, but english > refuses to fit into this model - precisely because it isn't Latin. <snip> David Crystal, in "The English Language" (Penguin), writes | "this rule was first introduced in the seventeenth | century, but as we have seen it has been ignored, notably in recent | years by Churchill, who found it something 'up with which he would not | put'. In formal English, the rule tends to be followed; but in | informal usage, final prepositions are normal." SignatureEnrico C |
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