"at" at the end of a where phrase

[J. Eulenberg]

Dennis, I don't know.  The fact that I had her and learned how to speak
has always stood me in good stead, and I'm grateful.  I should think she'd
have had a better epitaph!

Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg <eulenbrg at u.washington.edu>

On Sun, 7 Dec 2003, Dennis R. Preston wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Dennis R. Preston" <preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "at" at the end of a where phrase
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >Does it say "She Made Us Ashamed of Who We Were" on Ms. Smith's headstone?
>
> dInIs
>
>
>
> >Too bad if it IS taking off!  My 5th grade teacher, Miss Smith, for whom I
> >am now eternally grateful, explained that the correct answer to "Where are
> >you at?" or "Where are you going to?" was "between the a and the t, or the
> >t and the o," which ever applied.  It was a great phrase to use among
> >ourselves, but I have grown increasingly careful about using it now . . .
> >when even distinguished folk make the errors.
> >
> >Miss Smith had two goals in life -- to make her Texas students sound less
> >like they came from Texas (no grammatical errors like those above, no
> >pitcher frames, no liberries where we went to for the books, and never
> >Febuerry or Massatusetts.)  Don't know where she was from, but she was at
> >least adamant about these.  Her second goal was to produce a generation or
> >two of writers, and here I think that she succeeded!
> >
> >Julia Niebuhr Eulenberg <eulenbrg at u.washington.edu>
>