What is the difference in the following two sentences
The way he is behaving in, he'll soon spill the beans. I am afraid.
The way he is behaving, he'll soon spill the beans. I am afraid.
Is any one of them wrong?
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If you wanted to keep the preposition in the first version above, it would have to be transformed into The way in which he is behaving... – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica Jun 18 '20 at 13:21
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@Fumble But why? Can you give me a reason? – Kshitij Singh Jun 19 '20 at 7:49
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I'd have to think about that. But note that strictly speaking, you text isn't a valid "sentence" (even though the second version is perfectly idiomatic). That initial element before the comma is really just a noun phrase, with no valid syntactic connection to the statement that follows. That may not be directly relevant to the question of when and where the preposition in is required or not, but it might be simpler to analyse an utterance where that noun phrase validly acts as the syntactic "subject" - The way he behaves [in] annoys me. – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica Jun 19 '20 at 11:39
"Behave in" is not an idiom. One would have to "behave in some manner."
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"Behave" implies behaving properly. "Misbehave" means behaving improperly. – Davo Jun 18 '20 at 21:01
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This answer might address the matter of why it's not syntactically valid idiomatic to include the final preposition in The teacher told the children to behave [in], but that's not the question OP is asking about here. – FumbleFingers Reinstate Monica Jun 19 '20 at 11:50
