Every so often someone here complains about people dropping the "-ly" ending from adverbs. I'm reminded of a story:

A college professor hands back the essays his students have written. One of the students looks at his grade--a "C"--and thumbs through the paper to find out why he did so poorly. Thirteen times throughout the paper the professor had added--in red--the "-ly" ending to an adverb which the student had omitted.

After class the student followed the professor out the door and complained about his grade. "The '-ly' ending on an adverb can't be all that important!" he protested. "You must have known what I meant. The ending wouldn't make any difference!"

The professor pointed to a callipygian young lady walking ahead of them. "You're saying that it makes no difference whether you are looking at her sternly, as opposed to looking at her stern?"

 

Interesting story, although I had to lookup the meaning of callipygian

 

cal

 

No butts about it, so did I

 

I have a guy who works for me who uses "disposed" instead of "disposed of." I must have told him 100 times that they mean different things. He will write in a report "that waste should be disposed." I ask him "disposed to do what?"

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Raptor
[B]I have a guy who works for me who uses "disposed" instead of "disposed of."

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Raptor
[B]I have a guy who works for me who uses "disposed" instead of "disposed of."

 

My waste has a distinct personality. You don't want to know about it.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by The Raptor
[B]I have a guy who works for me who uses "disposed" instead of "disposed of."

 

"Of" and "at" are prepositions, not participles. A participle is a verb form; e.g., "giving" is the present participle of "give", "given" is the past participle.

Purists maintain that a sentence oughtn't to end with a preposition. There is a famous story about Winston Churchill having a speech edited by his minister of foreign affairs: wherever he had ended a sentence with a preposition the minister circled it and moved it back to the middle of the sentence where it belonged. This incensed Churchill, who wrote to the minister, "This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put!"