Is proper grammar to end a sentence with to?

Answer 1

No, not unless you have to!

Though I appreciate the ironic humor of the above answer, I'm afraid many readers may not get it.

Furthermore, I don't think the answer is quite correct grammatically. The word "to", in this case, is part of of the infinitive form of the verb "to end", though looking at this sentence alone, no one would know that because the word "end" does not appear in the sentence. And that's the problem with this sentence. You have only half of an infinitive. It would be better if the first answerer had said "It is not proper grammar to end a sentence with "to", unless you have to". With this error, the first answerer has undermined his humorous case for allowing sentences to end with "to".

More importantly, however, I believe that what the questioner meant to ask is whether it is proper grammar to end a sentence with the preposition "to". It is not used as a preposition in the first answer, and therefore, humorous as it is, I don't believe the first answer is the best answer to this question.

Ending a sentence with a preposition is more accurately referred to as "preposition stranding", since it can happen elsewhere in a sentence. The key is whether the object of the preposition appears before or after the preposition itself. If the object appears before the preposition, it's preposition stranding. But, despite what others may tell you, there is absolutely nothing grammatically incorrect about preposition stranding, no matter where it occurs in a sentence.

For a time, many English grammars included a prohibition on preposition stranding. There are at least two different theories on why this came to be. One is that, in Latin, it is improper to end a sentence with a preposition, and some ridiculous grammarians thought that the English Language should do everything it could to emulate Latin, because Latin was perceived to the be "perfect" language. This doesn't make sense to me because, if Latin was so great and wonderful, then why did it die as a language over a thousand years ago? Today, no one speaks it but Catholic priests and a few university professors, and no oneconsiders it their primary language.

The second theory involves a disagreement between two non-contemporary English poets. Though I can't seem to find the name of the work, Ben Jonson, in 1611, published the line "the bodies that those souls were frightened from". Over 60 years later, John Dryden, who seemed to have a great deal of disdain for literarians of the previous generation, including Jonson's more famous contemporary, William Shakespeare, criticized Jonson's line, saying it would be better if the preposition were "fronted". However, Dryden didn't provide the rationale that gave rise to his suggestion, so for all we know, he might have simply thought it would have worked better with the meter of the poem had Jonson wrote, "the bodies from which those souls were frightened". But, on the other hand, it is known that Dryden was very much a fan of Latin, so quite possibly, the rationale for Dryden's critique of Jonson was one and the same as the first theory of how this prohibition on preposition stranding came about.

What is really funny is that, a century after Dryden criticized Jonson, Robert Lowth became the first person to actually put this rule into a grammar text. In that grammar text, Lowth wrote this about preposition stranding: "This is an Idiom which our language is strongly inclined to". Note the utter hypocrisy of stranding a preposition in the same breath as condemning the practice. Maybe I'm just being contrarian here, but I'll be damned if I'm going to follow a rule made up by someone who can't follow it himself.

In any event, all modern English grammars agree that there is nothing wrong with preposition stranding, either written or spoken, formal or informal. It is a right and natural part of the English Language, and any attempt to subvert the use of it is pure pretentiousness. In fact, the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, after condemning this false prohibition and insisting that preposition stranding is proper, goes on to say that it is the awkward re-structuring of a sentence to avoid preposition stranding that is grammatically incorrect.

Answer 2

No, it is not proper grammar to end a sentence with "to" unless it is part of an infinitive verb phrase. In most cases, ending a sentence with "to" can make the sentence sound incomplete or awkward.