Pointing at.

Rodrigo   Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:24 am GMT
In an essay I wrote the phrase "...depends on the direction the superpowers' moral compass is pointing at" and my British teacher didn't mark it wrong but I'm not 100 % sure if it's correct. I've heard about the don't-end-a-sentence-in-a-preposition rule and that it is not universally accepted and that they always quote Churchill. Nevertheless, I would like to ask you if you find it correct? Perhaps changing 'at' with 'towards'.
Thanks.
Skippy   Thu Oct 04, 2007 1:08 am GMT
"Towards" is still a preposition. Yes, ending a sentence in a preposition is not "proper" English grammar; that being said, ending a sentence in a participle (which I'm using as a catch-all term for anything that helps define a verb) is perfectly fine... For example, "I'm going to shut him up." "Up" is a preposition, generally, but in this case helps define the verb "to shut up" which is slightly different from "to shut."

If you want to keep "pointing at" in your sentence and follow the "no preposition" rule (or, rather, no SUPERFLUOUS preposition rule) you could use the relatively awkward "depends on the direction at which the superpowers' moral compass is pointing." I would probably say "depends on where the superpowers' moral compass points." But that's just me... There's probably a better way to say it.