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I recently stumbled across the following sentence:

"Saving the planet is the topic in which I am interested the most."

From my feel for language this sentence sounds good, but I would definetly prefer the following one:

"Saving the planet is the topic which I am interested in the most."

I asked my prof about the second example and he meant it sounds strange and he wouldn't write it like that. So my question is whether the second senctence is also good and no colloqial language.

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I think this is based on a prejudicial, Victorian insistence that, "a sentence should never end with a preposition".
If you remove "the most" it makes it easier to see we would then be in grave danger of committing this 'crime'.

Saving the planet is the topic which I am interested in.

Churchill is supposed to have responded to this after it was insisted on by a speech writer (in fact this is apocryphal), but the lesson stands, nonetheless.

He is reported to have said

This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.

So, people feel more comfortable if the preposition is moved away from that 'dangerous end of the sentence' and put somewhere 'safer' instead.

Saving the planet is the topic in which I am interested.

All Victorians are now much happier, but in speech people don't construct an entire sentence before they start saying it, so that's where prepositions often end up.

For those of us less affected by this Victorian insistence, really the part that makes your sentence the most awkward is actually where "the most" fits. I would be perfectly happy with either

Saving the planet is the topic in which I am the most interested.

or

Saving the planet is the topic which I am the most interested in.

Although even I, as a non-Victorian, prefer the one where the preposition is moved to the less 'dangerous' location.

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    Thank you very much for your detailed response! I would have never imagined there's such a big story behind "my" little problem:)
    – dark_ursus
    Commented Jun 16, 2023 at 21:22
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"Saving the planet is the topic in which I am interested the most" is perfectly grammatical, and most people use "in which" in that way in a formal context like a report or an essay. But few people would say it in conversation.

"Saving the planet is the topic which I am interested in the most" is in general more natural; but the position of "the most" is awkward.

The way I would say it is

Saving the planet is the topic which I am most interested in.

But your formulation is possible if you want to put special emphasis on "the most".

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    In the proposed formulation, "which" is optional.
    – Graffito
    Commented Jun 15, 2023 at 22:52
  • @Colin Fine, I read your sentence, but "most" seemed to be easily confused with another use of "most" for me, because "most" in your sentence seemed exactly like another use of "most", which does not mean "the best" degree. For instance, "I'll be most pleased to speak to them." In this sentence, "most" is different from "most" in your sentence, however both precede an adjective. So, how we differentiate in which sense "most" is used in your sentence.
    – Yunus
    Commented Jun 16, 2023 at 7:33
  • @Yunus: you're right that in written form, it is ambiguous. In speech, superlative most would be given greater emphasis. (And which I am the most interested in is also possible, but I don't think many people would say it.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Jun 16, 2023 at 15:19
  • @Graffito: true, "which" may be omitted in this case.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Jun 16, 2023 at 15:20
  • Thank you very much for your detailed response!
    – dark_ursus
    Commented Jun 16, 2023 at 21:22

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