Is there a rule forbidding the use of “is” at the end of a sentence? [closed]

Is there any justification for using “is” at the end of an English sentence, or is there a rule that forbids this?

Solution 1:

The British National Corpus (BNC) has 4258 cites for sentences ending in "is", and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) has 32950.

        SPOKEN  FICTION  MAGAZINE  NEWSPAPER  ACADEMIC

BNC       808     1600      302       303        315  
COCA    13627     8607     4806      4119       1791           

In other words: no, there is no such rule.

Here are a few sample sentences illustrating only some of the many possible constructions:

• That's just how it is.

• Go where the love is.

• I don't know who David Pollock is.

• I'm not affected. I don't know if anybody else is.

• ... then we can reduce the prison population by a third or a quarter or a half or whatever the target is.

• Treat it like the delicate body part it is.

• That's not unusual but getting up three or four times is.

• You can say it's a political gift for us, and it is.

• The farther right a category appears, the more valuable it is.

• And then I looked up. Sheer delight. Heaven on Earth. Southern heaven, that is.

As you can see, most of these you can't even reword in an unawkward way, if at all.

However, what you can do to many of these constructions is use them with any other verb.

• That's just how it smells.
• Go where the love resides.
• I wonder how much David Pollock weighs.
• I don't feel affected. I don't know if anybody else does.
• You can say it's a political gift for us, and it shows.
• The farther right a category is, the more valuable it appears.
• The more you read, the wiser you become.
• Sheer delight. Heaven on Earth. Southern heaven, to wit.
• Etc.

In other words, it is perfectly normal for an English sentence to end in a verb, so you'd need to make a rather strong case why to be should be any different.

Solution 2:

We have a popular expression here in the US, for what it's worth:

It is what it is.

I can't imagine that expression being improved by imposing a rule that would require another word to end it.