Timeline for Isn't there a preposition ("to") missing after "IP addresses that devices are allocated"?
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| Feb 2 at 14:16 | comment | added | justhalf | @FumbleFingers thank you so much for your pedagogical examples! Really appreciate that. What's interesting is that in your last few examples, I can understand them just fine as well. Only the OP example sounds weird to me. I'm trying to hypothesize a few possibilities to explain this, but haven't found anything satisfying so far. The phrase *set of IP addresses [which are] allocated to the devices" is also fine to me (with and without the thing in bracket). | |
| Feb 2 at 11:39 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | ...but you could certainly look into how a verb like to link works. You can ask What's the job John was allocated? or What's the address this device was given? (with or without to at the end), but you can't drop the final preposition in What's the address this device was linked to? | |
| Feb 2 at 11:32 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | ...You have a number of devices and addresses, OR workers and jobs, OR whatever, that initially have no specific defined relationship individually. You "give, assign, allocate" one specific device/address OR worker/job to one specific address/device OR one specific job/worker, and generally speaking it doesn't make much difference which "direction" you make the connection - it's usually "the same" connection either way round. | |
| Feb 2 at 11:24 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @justhalf: I may have overlooked something, but offhand I can't think of any relevant difference in the syntax of near-synonymous verbs allocate, assign, give, apportion, allot, earmark,... If you can understand Give John the job and Assign the job to John you're halfway there. You just need to get your head around things like I need to allocate more workers to that job, to see how we can often "invert" the syntactic roles of "agent" and "patient" (verb "subject" and "object") in such "one-to-one" relationships. | |
| Feb 2 at 5:52 | comment | added | justhalf | In this case "allocated" has the same verb structure as "given" in your example? Is it natural for native speaker? I'm a non-native speaker, and I can understand the "given" example just fine, but same as OP, having trouble understanding the "allocated" example. I guess I just need to read more to familiarize with this use of that verb. | |
| Feb 2 at 1:09 | comment | added | Bergi | @FumbleFingers I mean that a set of 65024 link-local IP addresses is allocated (within all available addresses) for use by the devices. Only once a device chooses (randomly) from this set, it does assign itself (to) that specific address. | |
| Feb 2 at 0:59 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | ...You'll note that in my example where the "direction" of assignment does matter, it's still the case that after the "gifting" / assignment / allocation (of slaves or plantations, howsoever it's parsed), if you know the slaves you know the plantation, and vice-versa, exactly as with OP's devices and addresses. The crucial difference is with the plantations example, it really matters who / what is owned by who / what! | |
| Feb 2 at 0:50 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @Bergi: I have no idea what difference you're getting at. But if the allocated addresses are "reserved", that implies that after allocation, if you know the address, you know the corresponding device(s), and if you know the device, you know the corresponding address(es). Hence it makes no difference whether we say the addresses were assigned devices or the devices were assigned addresses. Anyway, that description works for me, even if it's not 100% accurate to circuit designers and systems programmers! | |
| Feb 1 at 23:05 | comment | added | Bergi | Actually, this is not a one-to-one assignment carried out by someone (like the absent DHCP server). The IP addresses are allocated, or reserved / supplied / provided, (by the standard) for the devices. | |
| Feb 1 at 18:56 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Found it! Dryden wrote sniffily: ‘The preposition in the end of the sentence,’ ‘a common fault with him.’ (Later Dryden noticed that his own writing often had the same fault, so he set about fixing them up.) But who had ever said it was a fault? Dryden provides no clue. It seems to have been just a whim of his. | |
| Feb 1 at 18:28 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Yawn. I never heard of Joshua Poole as an authority on English. But I do know most people today would have trouble understanding even John Dryden's prose, let alone his poetry! Nevertheless, I'd be interested in knowing exactly how he phrased his injunction. I imagine it's not easy to understand and remember whatever he wrote, or surely at least some pedants in the following centuries would have dressed it up for more modern consumption! But many people can cite the Churchill "refutation", even though that should be very hard to remember, being so obviously "unidiomatic". | |
| Feb 1 at 18:07 | comment | added | John Bollinger | I'm not arguing for or against there being such a rule. I'm arguing against the propositions that no such rule was ever promoted (it certainly was), and that no significant number of people believe it to be a rule (many certainly do). But the original point was that whether it's accepted as a rule or not, these particular constructions ending with "to" might be clearer if revised so as not to do so. | |
| Feb 1 at 18:02 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @JohnBollinger: Each to their own. If you still think up with which I will not put is "observing" rather than "flaunting a rule", I won't try any harder to convince you otherwise. | |
| Feb 1 at 16:36 | comment | added | John Bollinger | Merriam-Webster provides this commentary: "Ending a sentence with a preposition (such as with, of, and to) is permissible in the English language. It seems that the idea that this should be avoided originated with writers Joshua Poole and John Dryden [....] the idea that it is a rule is still held by many." That many do take it to be a rule (even if they are willing to flaunt it) correlates with my own experience. | |
| Feb 1 at 15:48 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | @JohnBollinger: I'm in my dotage, but with a degree in English. And I don't think I've ever encountered even an antiquated text genuinely promoting the "rule that sentences should not end with prepositions". But over a lifetime I must have heard and read thousands of instances of people mocking such an obviously ridiculous idea. Probably starting with my English teacher back in the 60s quoting the "rule" - then trotting out the ...pedantic nonsense up with which I will not put! line usually attributed to Churchill taking issue with his proofreader's "corrections". | |
| Feb 1 at 15:36 | comment | added | John Bollinger | People don't seem to care so much any more about the old rule that sentences should not end with prepositions, but adhering to that does lead to more clarity (and more verbosity) in cases such as this. For example, "the plantations to which slaves were given" vs "the planattions given [to] slaves". | |
| Jan 31 at 18:36 | history | edited | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 31 at 15:12 | history | edited | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jan 31 at 15:07 | vote | accept | Andrey Voeyko | ||
| Jan 31 at 14:20 | history | answered | FumbleFingers | CC BY-SA 4.0 |