The earliest known version makes no mention of Churchill, and appeared in the Strand Magazine, later quoted in the "Pepper and Salt" section of the Wall Street Journal on 1942-09-30:
When a memorandum passed round a certain Government department, one young pedant scribbled a postscript drawing attention to the fact that the sentence ended with a preposition, which caused the original writer to circulate another memorandum complaining that the anonymous postscript was "offensive impertinence, up with which I will not put."
The earliest known attribution of this to Churchill appears to be in Plain Words (1948) by Sir Ernest Gowers, who writes:
It is said that Mr. Winston Churchill once made this marginal comment against a sentence that clumsily avoided a prepositional ending: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put".
A far more elaborate version also appeared in the Wall Street Journal on the December 9 that same year:
The carping critic who can criticize the inartistic angle of the firemen's hose while they are attempting to put out the fire, has his counterpart in a nameless individual in the British Foreign Office who once found fault with a projected speech by Winston Churchill. It was in the most tragic days of World War II, when the life of Britain, nay, of all Europe, hung in the balance. Churchill prepared a highly important speech to deliver in Parliament, and, as a matter of custom, submitted an advanced draft to the Foreign Office for comment. Back came the speech with no word save a notation that one of the sentences ended with a preposition, and an indication where the error should be eliminated. To this suggestion, the Prime Minister replied with the following note: "This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."
Over the years many variants that seem to have been based on informal anecdotes have arisen including:
"This is the type of pedantry up with which I will not put."
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."
This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets " This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put." in the context of ""Churchill on Prepositions", and alt.english.usage at google groups have been the most immediate sources for much of the information which indicates this remark or others like it were probably not made by Churchill.
The earliest known version makes no mention of Churchill, and appeared in the Strand Magazine, later quoted in the "Pepper and Salt" section of the Wall Street Journal on 1942-09-30:
When a memorandum passed round a certain Government department, one young pedant scribbled a postscript drawing attention to the fact that the sentence ended with a preposition, which caused the original writer to circulate another memorandum complaining that the anonymous postscript was "offensive impertinence, up with which I will not put."
The earliest known attribution of this to Churchill appears to be in Plain Words (1948) by Sir Ernest Gowers, who writes:
It is said that Mr. Winston Churchill once made this marginal comment against a sentence that clumsily avoided a prepositional ending: "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put".
A far more elaborate version also appeared in the Wall Street Journal on the December 9 that same year:
The carping critic who can criticize the inartistic angle of the firemen's hose while they are attempting to put out the fire, has his counterpart in a nameless individual in the British Foreign Office who once found fault with a projected speech by Winston Churchill. It was in the most tragic days of World War II, when the life of Britain, nay, of all Europe, hung in the balance. Churchill prepared a highly important speech to deliver in Parliament, and, as a matter of custom, submitted an advanced draft to the Foreign Office for comment. Back came the speech with no word save a notation that one of the sentences ended with a preposition, and an indication where the error should be eliminated. To this suggestion, the Prime Minister replied with the following note: "This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."
Over the years many variants that seem to have been based on informal anecdotes have arisen including:
"This is the type of pedantry up with which I will not put."
"This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
About Winston Churchill