LunaticFringe and Orientcalf Thanks for the Shelley clarification. I shall take great delight in informing the other teacher. (I might elaborate the truth a bit and tell her you are his long lost relatives)
Re the trailing prepositions, the example way back is a phrasal verb (pick up) where a preposition is added to a simple verb to add something to its meaning. They stem from old English, although each one will have a Latin-based counterpart (think go down v descend) That's why they are considered "inferior" to the more formal Latiny ones.
They're a bloody 'mare for my Italian students, in terms of meaning and syntax, in that some can have the direct object put in the middle, and some can't. (the example "pick up" can be divided, whereas "come up" (the sun came up) can't.)
Bill Bryson's book on the English language is pretty damn good, and he makes the point that US English could actually be seen as more correct as it's the English taken over by the Mayflower lot and absorbed by the native population and hasn't been adapted as much as UK English.
I worry a lot about the English language, I really do. I don't think anywhere else in the world would you get this - almost pride- in being rubbish at something that you seem to find in the UK. "I'm crap at English, I'm rubbish at spelling". As if it's a good thing.
My favourite most recent experience was last summer when a recently qualified PGCE teacher wrote some reports which I had to collate. Collate after having re-written to get rid of all the "could of worked harder" and "should of finished all his homework".