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?
Best Answer
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).