What sounds better? Is first version viable?
- This solution is quite difficult to come up with.
- It is quite difficult to come up with this solution.
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Sign up to join this communityWhat sounds better? Is first version viable?
The first is viable. If I were going to change it, it wouldn't be because of the "dangling preposition;" instead, I would use a more formal verb than "come up with" (such as derive):
This solution is quite difficult to derive.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with come up with. There isn't. However, many so-called dangling prepositions are really nothing more than the last part of a phrasal verb, and that fact is worth pointing out. For example, consider these:
No one would even blink an eye if those sentences said:
Your first sentence follows this same pattern; it uses come up with as a phrasal verb. In fact, in Macmillan's entry for this word, their example usage consists of a question with with at the end:
Is that the best you can come up with?
Both sentences sound equally good to me. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about the dangling preposition rule at all. Dangling prepositions are used frequently in everyday speech and even when writing formal essays. It's always seemed like a really pointless grammar rule to me, and it seems to be enforced very seldomly; dangling prepositions never really obscure the meaning of a sentence and it's a very commonplace way to speak.