Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:47:19 -0500

From: Beverly Flanigan FLANIGAN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OUVAXA.CATS.OHIOU.EDU

Subject: a nice place to live



New subject: Frequently of late I see variants of the above phrase

without "in" either preposed with "which" or stranded. Two such recent

local citations are: "Welcome to Athens County--a great place to live,

work, and visit!" (from a new webpage) and "we'll better be able

to...make OU a better place to live and study and also to live" (from

the student newspaper). I don't think the latter is a misprint; I

suspect "live and study" is a cluster meaning "live as a student" vs.

"live in general" (but I may be wrong).



A conversion test for the first citation would presumably be: "Let's

visit Athens"; "Let's live Athens"; "Let's work Athens." Granted, "a

great place to work" may be common, but is the "live minus in"

construction also widespread? I suspect it originated in the

prescription-based reluctance to end a sentence with a preposition,

esp. in writing. But when I surveyed my graduate students recently, I

was amazed at the general acceptance of the form, one student even

distinguishing between "in" (not required with 'live') and "within"

(connoting something like "within city limits"). Most, in fact, seemed

puzzled by my query. But then I saw an analogous statement on e-mail

(from students in the Business College): "We have created a few

questions that we would appreciate your quick response." And just now

I heard "[eco-minded lumbermen in Brazil look for] an empty space for

trees to fall." I know that pied-piping of preps with relative

pronouns is increasingly rare, but this lack of any preposition at all

mystifies me. Have others noticed this? (I will check Gilman's WDEU,

Don!)

Beverly Flanigan

Ohio University