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Wither whom?
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Davis, Thomas
Oct 28, 1998, 3:00:00 AM10/28/98
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The word "whom" seems to be disappearing from English except in
contexts where it immediately follows a preposition. These are
relatively formal, as revealed by Karen Stanley's concordance search.
But I think the majority of American speakers would choose to end a
sentence with a prepostion, as in "This is the girl who I went to the
movies with," rather than use the stilted locution "with whom."
>
I do teach the distinction between "who" and "whom" to intensive
students who are about to begin college classes, but it's not high on
my list of grammatical priorities. Most understand the principle, but
they can't employ it properly or consistently, and I don't want to
waste time drilling it into their heads at the expense of other more
important things. I would much prefer my students work on things like
subject-verb agreement and sentence combining, trusting they will
gradually master the use of "whom" in primarily written and
particularly academic discourse.
>
Ainslie Balwin asks, "What generally do we take as our authority for
acceptable language change?" I hope we can trust our instincts and
avoid authoritarian or prescriptive grammar in favor of our own
observations of what is commonly used in various contexts. Note, for
example, that I begin a sentence above with "but"; this isn't a
question of grammar but of style. It's acceptable because many other
writers do it and because I don't overuse it.
>
Tom Davis
Seattle Central Community College
Seattle, Washington, USA
tda...@sccd.ctc.edu
>
contexts where it immediately follows a preposition. These are
relatively formal, as revealed by Karen Stanley's concordance search.
But I think the majority of American speakers would choose to end a
sentence with a prepostion, as in "This is the girl who I went to the
movies with," rather than use the stilted locution "with whom."
>
I do teach the distinction between "who" and "whom" to intensive
students who are about to begin college classes, but it's not high on
my list of grammatical priorities. Most understand the principle, but
they can't employ it properly or consistently, and I don't want to
waste time drilling it into their heads at the expense of other more
important things. I would much prefer my students work on things like
subject-verb agreement and sentence combining, trusting they will
gradually master the use of "whom" in primarily written and
particularly academic discourse.
>
Ainslie Balwin asks, "What generally do we take as our authority for
acceptable language change?" I hope we can trust our instincts and
avoid authoritarian or prescriptive grammar in favor of our own
observations of what is commonly used in various contexts. Note, for
example, that I begin a sentence above with "but"; this isn't a
question of grammar but of style. It's acceptable because many other
writers do it and because I don't overuse it.
>
Tom Davis
Seattle Central Community College
Seattle, Washington, USA
tda...@sccd.ctc.edu
>
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