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You've probably heard the joke about a Southerner visiting Harvard for the first time. When he asks a professor, "Can y'all tell me where the library's at?" the snobby scholar sniffs, "At Hahvahd, we refrain from concluding our sentences with prepositions."

"Well, then," replies the Dixie dweller, "can you tell me where the library's at, jackass?"

We all laugh at the abrupt deflation of the prof's pomposity. But many of us are still unsure about the acceptability of the sentence-ending "at."

Phrases such as "Where's it at?" and "I know where it's at" occur often in speech but rarely in writing. The construction is heard most commonly in the American South and Midwest.

Tim Johnson of East Haddam, Connecticut, writes that he encountered it often while living in Chicago. When he expressed his disapproval, he was branded an "East Coast snob," though apparently not a "jackass."

Tim has a point. On the smooth cheek of standard English, "where's it at" is an ugly pimple. For one thing, it's redundant. "Where's the library at?" means the same thing as "Where's the library?"

And, as the snooty Harvard don reminds us, "Where the library's at" also ends a sentence with a preposition. While the ban on sentence-ending prepositions has eased during the past few decades, a preposition is still not the best word to end a sentence with ... er, with which to end a sentence.

So why does "Where you at?" still flourish?

For one thing, "at" adds punch. If you were Huck Finn hiding in the hayloft, which query from your hickory-wielding Pap would make you quiver more -- "Where are you?" or "Where you at?"

This down-home "at" got a big boost during the 1960s from a most unlikely source: the hippies. Picking up on an idiom of jazz and rock musicians, the bell-bottomed boomers popularized expressions such as, "Here's where I'm at" and "Tell them where it's at." "At" was where it was at.

And, of course, we end sentences with other prepositions in common expressions, such as, "I know where you're coming from"; "It's not something to get involved in"; and "This is an issue we can agree on."

Winston Churchill cleverly spoofed the rigid insistence on avoiding sentence-ending prepositions by calling it "arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."

Thus, your decision to use the sentence-ending "at" depends on where you're at. While this usage may be fine for hoedowns and be-ins, in formal written English, it's as welcome as a moonshiner at a Sunday school picnic.

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Rob Kyff, a teacher and writer in West Hartford, Connecticut, invites your language sightings. His book, "Mark My Words," is available for $9.99 on Amazon.com. Send your reports of misuse and abuse, as well as examples of good writing, via email to WordGuy@aol.com or by regular mail to Rob Kyff, Creators Syndicate, 737 3rd Street, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

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