Complex relative sentences

Complex relative sentences. I already addressed this topic in a video I posted some months ago. Still, I feel it may be necessary to remind you all of a rather necessary addition to your skill set, which can "raise your game" whenever you need to produce formal, technical or academic texts.

To speakers of Romance languages, English relative sentences pose an irresistible temptation: the sequence "preposition + relative pronoun". A subject such as the person with whom I'm going out is grammatically impeccable, but is often frowned upon in the early stages of language learning. Why? Well, because day-to-day language overwhelmingly favors a different syntax, namely the person I'm going out with. Regardless what old timey grammar books or even native speakers will have you believe, the truth is with whom sounds quite formal.

That said, it is also true that sometimes we don't really have much of a choice. So, the sequence "preposition + relative pronoun" becomes the only realistic option we have. Consider these two sentences:

• Past the housing problem hung a gorgeous poster showing a cliff, along whose summit rode a man on a chesnut horse with a rifle slung over his shoulder

• At once, too, he would curse heaven for having failed to endow him at birth with literary talent, without which, of course, no one could so much as dream of acquiring a massolit membership card.

I take it you have noticed the unequivocally literary vibe of those two complex sentences. I know. You may relay the same message by dispensing with the relative clause (the part that starts with the text in bold type) and simply starting a new sentence. Is that truly elegant, though? The answer is a resounding no.

So, there you go. After years of trying to master those dangling prepositions you are told that your first impulse (the "Romance language" approach) can actually be correct. Feel free to use sequences like these:

• That's a prophecy the meaning of which is forever out of reach
• The circumstances under which this phenomenon might occur
• Finally, I would like to thank Michael Leigh without whose support we would not have managed to come this far

You're welcome.