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Do you want to come with?

Can I come with?

I seem to hear this construction more often in recent years, but it still grates on my ear.

I know it's often said that one shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition, but I class that rule along with split infinitives (i.e. — pedantic tosh).

Is it always informal/casual speech to end a sentence with "with"? Was it ever thus?

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Its Midwest via Scandinavia ; there's a famous paper by John Spartz and I'm getting out of the way before I'm trampled by linguists :-) – cindi Nov 23 '11 at 16:38
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"Who do you want to go with?" is a perfectly fine construction for most English speakers. However, "come with", as in "Do you want to come with?" is a construction that is only used regionally in some parts of the U.S. If it's from Scandinavia, that probably means Minnesota and environs. – Peter Shor Nov 23 '11 at 16:42
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oic. Spartz says it's a standard and grammatical utterance in the Upper Midwest dialect of American English, but I can't dig any deeper without actually buying a copy of his dissertation. – FumbleFingers Nov 23 '11 at 16:44
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This is a rule up with which I will not put! (Churchill) – GEdgar Nov 23 '11 at 18:29
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Quotation attributions on the Internet are notoriously hard to track down. (Lincoln) – kojiro Nov 23 '11 at 20:48
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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

I’ve heard of it, but never heard it. The absence of a direct object after a phrasal verb that normally has one is not unprecedented. FF has already mentioned come after, but there are other examples. You can get on or get off a bus, or you can just get on or get off. You can go without dinner, or you can just go without. I don’t imagine anyone objects to those now, if they ever did. I suspect the only thing intransitive come with can be charged with is being new.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, as Lunivore says, it’s a construction found in Afrikaans. German has the cognate separable verb mitkommen (although admittedly that occurs only intransitively).

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Is this because "on", "off", and "after" can be adverbs, while "with" generally can not? – Peter Shor Nov 23 '11 at 18:50
@PeterShor: They’re prepositions when followed by a noun, just like ‘with’: ‘jump on a bus’, ‘stay with you’. When not followed by a noun, they are adverbs, again, just like ‘with’: ‘I have to get off now’, ‘Can I come with?’ The OED records this use of ‘with’ as an adverb meaning ‘with it (me, them, etc.)’ as obsolete, but it seems to be making a comeback. – Barrie England Nov 23 '11 at 19:47
It might seem a bit harsh on @The English Chicken, but I'm going with this one even though everything here seems to be covered by his (or comments thereto). It's short and to the point, and seems to cover everything important. And - amusing as it may be - I'm not sure the pbfcomics strip was exactly central to the usage come with that I was asking about. – FumbleFingers Jan 15 '12 at 1:13
I've occasionally heard "Can I come with?" in the UK. It could be a German borrowing, although it is of course common across languages for prepositions to be transitive or intransitive and for there to be a little bit of variation in frequency of these uses among speakers. To give you an example from a different language family, you'll occasionally hear French speakers say "Tu viens avec?"; "Il faut faire avec" (meaning "Il faut faire avec ça" = "You have to cope/make do with it") is more or less standard. – Neil Coffey Nov 29 '12 at 4:39
up vote 11 down vote

It's perfectly fine to end a sentence with a preposition, don't believe any fear-mongering to make you believe otherwise.

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Sometimes it may sound awkward, sometimes it's more suitable for informal writing, but there is no prohibition against it.

Having to read comics about grammar jokes, I guess that's something I could live with.

However, the examples you cited don't sound like correct grammar to me. It's not because they end with with, it's the fact that they omit the personal pronoun:

Do you want to come with us?

Can I come with you?

They're informal speech patterns, and yes, there are grating, kind of like asking "How are you?" and getting "Thanks, I'm doing good."

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+1 for "bulletproof" example of sentence ending with "with". But I'm not sure it's specifically the missing personal pronoun that bugs me in the usage under scrutiny. I have no problem with, for example, "You go first and I'll come after". – FumbleFingers Nov 23 '11 at 16:38
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I've primarily heard this construction from people coming from South Africa, where (I believe) it's a literal translation of Afrikaans. – Lunivore Nov 23 '11 at 16:39
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I say to accept this answer and get it over with – Scott Brown Nov 23 '11 at 17:15
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@Peter Shor: oic. You mean they think of it as on a par with "Do you want to come along?". That makes a lot of sense to me - I can't casually see "with" as an adverb myself, but logically it ought to be possible with the right attitude! – FumbleFingers Nov 23 '11 at 19:27
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@FumbleFingers I wasn't really saying to accept this answer, it's your choice, of course. It was a little bit of wordplay on your question but it must've been a little wide of the mark. – Scott Brown Nov 24 '11 at 11:12
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