whoever? whomever?

[Marc Adler]

Question: "to whoever is" and "to whomever is" - which one is right?

"Give the money to who[m]ever is willing to take it."

To wit,

• to whom
• who is
  

are the prescribed forms. Adding the "ever" makes it possible to put "who" in a construction where it is simultaneously the object of preposition and the subject governing the following verb.

Any advice?

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

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[David Hanna]

Give the money to whoever wants it.  It's the subject in the clause.  Test: Drop "ever" and see which of them sounds correct.

 

Regards,

David Hanna

[Marc Adler]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 6:31 AM, David Hanna <david...@verizon.net> wrote:

 

Give the money to whoever wants it.  It's the subject in the clause.  Test: Drop "ever" and see which of them sounds correct.

But it's also the object of the preposition, isn't it? "To whom" is the prescribed form.

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[Minoru Mochizuki]

I don’t know if I am qualified to give you an advice, so what I am going to say is only my opinion.

 

I vote for "to whomever is" is better in a given sentence “Give the money to who[m]ever is willing to take it,” because I believe the correct sentence structure in this case is “Give the money to whomever, who is willing to take it,” and the main portion of the sentence is “Give the money to whomever,” and “who is willing to take it” is only a  noun complement clause that modifies the foregoing “whomever.”

 

Please do not be upset reading this NJS’s opinion.

 

 

Minoru Mochizuki

[Marc Adler]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 6:32 AM, Minoru Mochizuki <min...@rhythm.ocn.ne.jp> wrote:

 

take it,” because I believe the correct sentence structure in this case is “Give the money to whomever, who is willing to take it,” and the main portion of the sentence is “Give the money to

I'm actually starting to think that the classically correct way to say it "Give the money to him, who is willing to take it." "Whoever"'s ability to come between a preposition and a verb is unique, I think (I can't think of any other nouns or pronouns that can do it), and probably post-dates the dropping of "whom" from speech (around the time of Shakespeare, I think).

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[Kirill Sereda]

Rule 1 on the following website supports David’s point of view, in other words, “Give the money to whoever is willing to take it” is correct.

 

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/whoever.asp

 

Yes, on the one hand, the preposition “to” appears to require the objective case (i.e. whomever), but on the other hand, the word in question (who[m]ever) is the subject of a subordinate clause (S in the clause “S is willing to take it”), and we know that the objective case indicates an object and cannot be used for a subject (we don’t say “him is willing to take it”, “me like you very much”, or “her knows English well” etc.).

 

Because “who[m]ever” is a single word, we have to choose between the interests of the preposition “to” and Subject-Verb agreement in the subordinate clause.  As a result, concerns over the coherence of the clause prevail over the relatively insignificant demands of the preposition “to”.  We can, however, satisfy both by splitting the word in two: “Give the money to _him who_ comes to the door”.

 

Kirill

 

 

[Mark Spahn]

As Marc points out, with the suffix "-ever", the word

"who(m)ever" refers to a person who plays a role

both in the main clause and in the relative clause.

Which word to pick -- "whoever" or "whomever" --

is determined by the person's role in the relative clause.

 

Examples in which the same person is

(1) Subject of main clause, Subject of relative clause:

     Whoever gets hit will cry.

(2) Subject of main clause, Object of relative clause:

     Whomever you hit will cry.

(3) Object of main clause, Subject of relative clause:

     Pick whoever pleases you.

(4) Object of main clause, Object of relative clause:

     Pick whomever you please.

 

(Let's note that "please" has different meanings in

(3) and (4):  in (3) it means "give pleasure to", and

in (4) it means "be pleased to (pick), like, prefer".)

 

http://hubpages.com/hub/Grammar_Mishaps__Who_vs_Whom

says:

There is a simple trick to knowing the difference between who and whom. All you have to do is answer your question or restate the sentence using "he" or "him". This trick also works with whoever and whomever.

     he = who/whoever

     him = whom/whomever

 

And the answers to

http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar_quiz/who_1.asp

use this decision method.

But this method is intended for native speakers of English

who can rely on a feeling of "what sounds right".

 

Three further remarks...

 

* Hypothesis:  Native speakers of German who write

in English will have less perplexity than native speakers

of English in deciding between "whoever" and "whomever",

because NSGs can rely on the cognate grammar of German,

as in Kirill's example, "Give the money to whoever (= him who

= demjenigen, der) comes to the door."

(Evidence for or against this hypothesis is welcome.)

 

* Almost always when a who/whom(ever) mistake is made,

the mistake is that "whom" is used where "who" is correct. 

This is presumably because "whom" sounds more "grammatical".

 

* Occasionally "who(m)ever" is used without a

relative clause, in a sentence like,

"You just go ahead and pick who(m)ever."

This is really perplexing, because without a

relative clause, there is no basis to decide between

"whoever" and "whomever".   An example

is provided at the end of Ryan's first sentence

in the dialog at

http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/whoevergloss.htm

The meaning of "communicate it to whomever" could be either

"communicate it to whoever needs to know it" or

"communicate it to whomever you need to communicate it to".

(This confused dialog also has a misuse of "indirect object".)

 

-- Mark Spahn  (West Seneca, NY)

 

[Doreen Simmons]

Alternative reply:

As recently as the 1940s :-}, when I was getting my basic education from teachers too old to be conscripted,
or actually retained in service after retirement age to free the able-bodied for active service, I got the whole
bag about the correct use of 'who' and 'whom'. Since it fitted in with my incipient Latin studies, it made perfect sense;
the only problem was that even then, nobody used 'whom' unless they were scribing old-fashioned legal documents.

So, even back then, 'whom' had left the ordinary language of the British and was used only in extremely formal
(and mainly legal) language. Then, of course, the war ended and all the younger teachers came back and took over,
and (British) English has never been the same. All sorts of old shibboleths were discarded, and this was one of them.

So FWIW, my advice is: don't use 'whom' in any situation. It is dead, dead, dead.

Doreen@been there, done that, got the T-shirt

(PS) You would love my latest real T-shirt, recently bought at a 'Free-Tibet' stall being run by Mongolian students:
Five gorgeous hairy cartoon yaks, with curly horns up top and sweet little feet below, looking out at you with big
white eyes and pink mouths, and underneath them it says (all in beautiful blue embroidery):
Yak Yak Yak Yak Yak

Eat your hearts out, yakkers! It's mine, all mine!

[Marc Adler]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 8:02 AM, Kirill Sereda <kvse...@att.net> wrote:

 

of the clause prevail over the relatively insignificant demands of the preposition “to”.  We can, however, satisfy both by splitting the word in two: “Give the money to _him who_ comes to the door”.

I don't think the problem is solved by assessing the importance of one role or the other. In practice that might work, but in theory that's not how it works.

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[Marc Adler]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 8:09 AM, Mark Spahn <mark...@verizon.net> wrote:

 

(3) Object of main clause, Subject of relative clause:     Pick whoever pleases you.

This is the exact same as the problem sentence I proposed.
 

There is a simple trick to knowing the difference between who and whom. All you have to do is answer your question or restate the sentence using "he" or "him". This trick also works with whoever and whomever.

For the record, as a speaker of fairly fluent Russian, I understand the rules about who and whom, since Russian is more rigorous and complex in this regard than even German.

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[William Sakovich]

[[So FWIW, my advice is: don't use 'whom' in any situation. It is dead,
dead, dead.]]

So do not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for "whom".

- BS

[Marc Adler]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 8:35 AM, Doreen　Simmons <JZ8D...@asahi-net.or.jp> wrote:

 

So FWIW, my advice is: don't use 'whom' in any situation. It is dead, dead, dead.

That's probably the best advice. As I said, I think this use of "whoever" post-dates the loss of "whom," so there's no way it can be fit into the rules.
 

Eat your hearts out, yakkers! It's mine, all mine!

That is an awesome t-shirt.

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[Mark Stevenson]

> So FWIW, my advice is: don't use 'whom' in any situation. It is dead, dead, dead.

Amen!

An idiomatic "To whom is may concern" or "for whom the bell tolls" is
OK, I guess, but in general use, I think it's best to just stop
wringing your hands over it. I'm probably too young to know any
better, but if you have to think so bloody hard about it, it has long
left the realm of what comes naturally to a native speaker.

A good book that talks a little bit about this is /Word on the Street:
Debunking the Myth of "Pure" Standard English/ by John Mcwhorter.

Mark Stevenson
Tokyo

[Mark Stevenson]

Sorry, typo:
> An idiomatic "To whom *it* may concern" or "for whom the bell tolls" is

[Marc Adler]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 8:56 AM, Mark Stevenson <mark...@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, I guess, but in general use, I think it's best to just stop
wringing your hands over it. I'm probably too young to know any

Again, for the record (I have a feeling we're going to get into one of those "but don't forget white chocolate" discussions):

• I'm not wringing my hands.
• I went out of my way to make sure people understood I wanted the prescriptivist answer.
• I don't use "whom" in speech.
• I do know the prescriptivist rules.
  

ijou desu.

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[Kirill Sereda]

Marc Adler writes:

>>I don't think the problem is solved by assessing the importance of one role or the other. In practice that might work, but in theory that's not how it works.

Could you please explain how this works in theory?

 

One thing is absolutely certain: using the objective case (whomever) would break the Subject-Verb agreement in the subordinate clause and ruin it: “Whomever /object/ is willing to take it” is sheer nonsense, just like “Me /object/ am willing to take it”.  This would be absolutely unacceptable.  The imperative of internal coherence, of S-V agreement, in the subordinate clause insulates it from the transitive demands of prepositions or transitive verbs in the main clause.

 

Kirill

[Marc Adler]

On Fri, May 21, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Kirill Sereda <kvse...@att.net> wrote:

 

One thing is absolutely certain: using the objective case (whomever) would break the Subject-Verb agreement in the subordinate clause and ruin it: “Whomever /object/ is willing to take it” is sheer nonsense, just like “Me /object/ am willing to take it”.  This would be absolutely unacceptable.  The imperative of internal coherence, of S-V agreement, in the subordinate clause insulates it from the transitive demands of prepositions or transitive verbs in the main clause.

 

I understand that this is the descriptive reason why "to whoever is" sounds better to us ("to who" sounds okay (although it's prescriptively proscribed) whereas "whomever is" sounds wrong (although ironically enough you'll see this on the internet due to hypercorrection, like "with you and I").

That's not what I'm asking, though. I want to know what the grammar rules say about this situation. As far as I know, there's no grammar rule that says "if you're going to break one of these rules, then favor subject-verb agreement," which is essentially what you're saying.

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[Yoshiro Shibasaki]

Isn't this regarded as just the object "anyone" is abbreviated?

"Give the money to (anyone) whoever is willing to take it."

Yoshi

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Edinburgh, Scotland (UK)                Mobile: 07808 925 795
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English/German/Danish/Japanese (biomedical sciences)
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http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~yoshi/resume.htm

[Anthony Bryant]

On May 21, 2010, at 7:06 AM, Marc Adler wrote:

> Question: "to whoever is" and "to whomever is" - which one is right?
>
> "Give the money to who[m]ever is willing to take it."
>
> To wit,
> • to whom
> • who is
> are the prescribed forms. Adding the "ever" makes it possible to put "who" in a construction where it is simultaneously the object of preposition and the subject governing the following verb.
>
> Any advice?

"Whomever."

Still the object.

[Tom Donahue]

Here is about about 20 minutes or so of reading from one of the
linguists at Language Log.
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=16#more-16

It explains that there are two standard systems for dealing with
who(ever) vs. whom(ever): one that emphasizes OBJECTness
and one that doesn't. It also explains how linguists have now
shifted from single words to clauses as the central concepts
in syntax, which often helps in cases like this.

Myself, I agree with Doreen that whom is dead, dead, dead,
and never use it.

--
Tom Donahue

[Kirill Sereda]

>>That's not what I'm asking, though. I want to know what the grammar rules say about this situation. As far as I know, there's no grammar rule that says "if you're going to break one of these rules, then favor subject-verb agreement," which is essentially what you're saying.

 

Well, the principle of clause autonomy and insulation seems to be a general rule.  A complex sentence is divided into a main structure and substructures, i.e. a main clause and dependent clauses, and within these dependent clauses, basic coherence must be maintained just as basic coherence has to be maintained within the main clause.  The backbone of such coherence is subject-verb agreement and verb-object agreement.  If elements outside the dependent clauses are allowed to freely alter these basic SV and VO agreements within the dependent clauses, then the backbone of the latter breaks down, and the dependent clauses can no longer stand, causing the whole structure to collapse in gooey mess.  As a result, special 2-component insulating interfaces have been developed that connect outside elements in the main clause to dependent clauses (anyone who, that which, tot kto, celui qui, etc).  The first component takes the impact of the main clause (such as a case – if cases are still alive), and the second one is part and parcel of the dependent clause and changes in accordance with its internal needs.  “Who[m]ever” appears to operate as such an interface, only the order of the components is reversed: “-ever”, corresponding to “any(one)”, is attached behind “who[m]”, and “who[m]”, while being the first component, is functionally the second component and belongs to the dependent clause.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whoever#Who.28m.29.28so.29ever

“According to traditional grammar and guides to usage, the relative pronouns who(m)ever and who(m)(so)ever take the case appropriate to their internal clause.”

 

Kirill

[Laurie Berman]

On May 21, 2010, at 10:42 AM, Marc Adler wrote:

> That's not what I'm asking, though. I want to know what the grammar
> rules say about this situation. As far as I know, there's no
> grammar rule that says "if you're going to break one of these
> rules, then favor subject-verb agreement," which is essentially
> what you're saying.

The grammar books say pretty clearly that "whoever" is correct in
such instances. So, I suppose what you want is to know WHY it's
correct . . .

Perhaps this might help. In The Careful Writer, Bernstein explains
that "the whole clause is the object of the preposition . . . , and
within this clause the pronoun is the subject and should be the
nominative . . ."

BTW, "to whoever/whomever is willing to take it" is not a variant of
"to him, who is willing to take it," since the first is restrictive
and the second is nonrestrictive. These are grammatically different
and have different meanings, as the second implies that you are
thinking of someone in particular. This is a key point, I think.

I would say use "whoever" because it is unambiguously correct, not
because some people want to strike "whom" from the English language.

Laurie Berman

[Dominic Pease]

Your distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive isn't
necessarily true; the comma marking off the subordinate clause may
indicate such a meaning, but 'him who' is historically a very common
substitute for 'whoever'. "Let whoever desires peace prepare for war"
is the equivalent of Vegetius' "Let him who desires peace prepare for
war" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetius).

Having studied Latin extensively, this doesn't strike me as a
difficult distinction to make. But then, I do actually use 'whom'
regularly-- even in conversation, when I think I can get away with it!

On 5月21日, 午前11:50, Laurie Berman <bermagu...@verizon.net> wrote:
> BTW, "to whoever/whomever is willing to take it" is not a variant of  
> "to him, who is willing to take it," since the first is restrictive  
> and the second is nonrestrictive. These are grammatically different  
> and have different meanings, as the second implies that you are  
> thinking of someone in particular. This is a key point, I think.

[Mark Spahn]

Dominic Pease says

> I do actually use 'whom' regularly-- even in
> conversation, when I think I can get away with it!

but Doreen Simmons says

> So FWIW, my advice is: don't use 'whom' in
> any situation. It is dead, dead, dead.

It is certainly true that we can get along just fine
without a distinction between the nominative
(subjective) and accusative (objective) forms
of "who(m)", in the same way we get along just
fine with "which" as either subject or object
of a relative clause.
But is there any actual data supporting the
assertion that "whom" is "dead, dead, dead"?
My subjective -- ha! maybe I should say
"objective" -- impression is that "whom" is slightly
more prevalent now than it used to be.
Maybe there's some clever way to scan the
worldwide web to compare the whom/who
ratio of English texts pre-1950 and post-2000.

-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

P.S. What do overeducated owls say?
http://www.onehorseshy.com/highbrow/who_vs_whom?p=onehorseshy.266090744

[pls]

Hi Marc and all...

--- Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Question: "to whoever is" and "to whomever is" - which one is right?

As a preamble of sorts, i don't think that "right" and "wrong" are useful
expressions at all in this kind of context...

But, since you have introduced the term, i'd say "right" is what people use
- a noticeable majority of NES all over the world (the degree of majority
being substiantiable by reviewing linguistic and quantitative analysis of
usage samples) appears to use "whoever", while a minority uses "whomever".
In my view you are free to use either (i use "whoever", and if anybody asks
for a reason, i'd explain it along the lines of what has been amply laid
out by Kirill and others). To me "whomever" sounds like an
overcompensation, perhaps based on fear of grammatical prescriptivists. ;-)

> Any advice?

Yes: forget prescriptivism, go with the flow... ;-)

By the way, if anybody is interested in developing a realistic approach to
resolving seemingly incompatible "rules" in language (or in life in
general, for that matter), here is a starter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimality_theory

Regards: Hendrik



.
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[Doreen Simmons]

This is what happens when people try to talk about English in terms of Latin.
In Latin the dative of the pronoun is essential, and the nominative of the relative is also essential: ei qui.
English is much more fluid and 'to whoever' makes perfect sense until you try to fit it into the straitjacket of Latin
syntax -- an approach that in the UK was discredited around 1950, I believe.

>Your distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive isn't
>necessarily true; the comma marking off the subordinate clause may
>indicate such a meaning, but 'him who' is historically a very common
>substitute for 'whoever'. "Let whoever desires peace prepare for war"
>is the equivalent of Vegetius' "Let him who desires peace prepare for
>war" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetius).
>
>Having studied Latin extensively, this doesn't strike me as a
>difficult distinction to make.

Doreen Simmons
jz8d...@asahi-net.or.jp

[David J. Littleboy]

From: "pls" <oki...@yahoo.co.jp>

>
>> Any advice?
>
> Yes: forget prescriptivism, go with the flow... ;-)

But as a working writer/translator, one needs to know what one's customers
thinks they're paying for. And if the customer wants prescriptively correct
writing, you need to be able to provide it.

David J. Littleboy
"Whom Do You Love": the Harvard version of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love.
Tokyo, Japan

[Dominic Pease]

Actually, it's Latin that helps a guy (or this one, anyway) remember
that 'whoever' is correct. Whomever would in fact be hypercorrection
and is not (traditionally speaking) correct syntactically.

I wasn't writing to say that we should always include extra pronouns
that English doesn't need. I was just pointing out that many foreign
languages have stricter rules of declension and conjugation which,
where they coincide with the rules of English, can be useful in
understanding and remembering the grammar, however anachronistic you
think that grammar has become.

For what it's worth, I don't believe that talking about English in
terms of Latin has been discredited so much as simply fallen out of
favor. There's something to be said for prescriptivist language
studies, and unfortunately there are too few people around to do it.
But since that's not the purpose of this list, I'll refrain from
getting more pedantic than I've already been!

[Mark Spahn]

> Hi Marc and all...
>
> --- Marc Adler <marc....@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Question: "to whoever is" and "to whomever is" - which one is right?
>

> By the way, if anybody is interested in developing a realistic approach to
> resolving seemingly incompatible "rules" in language (or in life in
> general, for that matter), here is a starter:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimality_theory
>
> Regards: Hendrik

Hi Hendrik,
Thanks for that reference to optimality theory.
To answer your question, "to whoever is" is (to me)
the correct answer. It both sounds right and agrees
with the "rule" that the role of "who(m)ever" in the
subordinate (relative) clause is what determines
which choice is right. Here, "who(m)ever" can
only be the subject of the relative clause's verb "is",
so it's "whoever".
Your three-word example elicits an image of the
survivors of a plane crash sending out a desperate
"CQ" S.O.S. message: "To whoever is out there,
we appeal to you to rescue us."

And yet, a Google search finds 17 times more
hits for the incorrect "to whomever is" than
for the correct "to whoever is" (2,800,000 vs. 165,000).
For a syllable that is supposed to be "dead, dead, dead",
"whom" is sure clinging tenaciously to life -- even when
it's wrong!

-- Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)

[Doreen Simmons]

Mark observed: And yet, a Google search finds 17 times more

>hits for the incorrect "to whomever is" than
>for the correct "to whoever is" (2,800,000 vs. 165,000).
>For a syllable that is supposed to be "dead, dead, dead",
>"whom" is sure clinging tenaciously to life -- even when
>it's wrong!

No, Mark -- *especially* when it's wrong. The people who are particularly keen on using "whom" wherever they can fit it in are mostly the ones who can't parse.


Doreen Simmons
jz8d...@asahi-net.or.jp

[Mark Spahn]

I don't know how I missed it before, but
http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2007/10/21/whomever-is-never-actually-right/
has an excellent explanation.
The author (whose name doesn't seem to be
anywhere on this page) calls "who(m)ever"
a "fused relative", that is, a relative pronoun
that is the equivalent of "the person who(m)".
What I called the "main" and "relative" clauses,
he calls the "matrix (top-level)" and "embedded" clauses.
His explanation is clearer than mine was,
and he djinns up sentences illustrating
the same four matrix/embedded clause
subject/object cases that I considered
(and he must be right, cuz he agrees with me).

Comment #4 discusses the German version
of this question.
-- Mark Spahn @ Pedants R Us

[Dominic Pease]

Doreen wrote:

> No, Mark -- *especially* when it's wrong. The people who are particularly keen on using "whom" wherever they can fit it in are mostly the ones who can't parse.

Perhaps so, but doesn't this very fact indicate that there is an
instinctive desire among a very broad and diverse set of people
to follow prescriptive grammar-- even if they end up getting it
wrong? This would seem, at any rate, to dispel the idea that
adherence to traditional grammar is elitist snobbery, whereas
those throwing the rules to the wind in favor of whatever is
current is populist and down to earth. The fact is that both
groups has its share of snobs.

I think there's got to be a middle ground somewhere. Even as
one of the traditionalist snobs myself, I certainly think there's
a place for plain old colloquial chat, and in those contexts,
who cares whether it's whoever or whomever? I also think it's
inexcusable to sneer at people's mistakes. But I can't help
feeling that people in general value defined rules of language.
Surely ignoring that is as bad as requiring too much of it?

In any case, a versatile translator probably needs to have a
good command of whatever grammar they (or he? ha! take
that, descriptivist grammarians!) can. In addition to the
problem of what your clients want, poetic, literary,
philosophical, or grave subjects (to name a few of many
possible categories) would seem to demand prose to
match. Butchering the grammar required to give your
translation an effective tone can make an otherwise
excellent passage pretty lame.

Dominic Pease

[Doreen Simmons]

Dominic wrote, inter alia:

> The fact is that both groups has its share of snobs.

I rest my case.


Doreen Simmons
jz8d...@asahi-net.or.jp

[Dominic Pease]

>> The fact is that both groups has its share of snobs.
>
> I rest my case.
>

There's inability to parse, and there are simple mental slips. Yes,
obviously, what I thought I'd written by the end of the sentence
was, "each has its own." I am sure that if, at some point here,
I'd been casting stones myself, I'd feel appropriately chastized,
but as it is, I'll just leave my comments for whatever they were,
or weren't, worth; I thought they were apropos, but I'm new here,
so maybe not.

If you got the impression that I puff myself up because of some
perceived verbal superiority, I apologize. I write or say what
comes naturally to me in context, and that's about it, unless
I'm writing with some formal purpose. Using 'whom' in
conversation isn't "using 'whom' wherever I can fit it in," it's a
leak from a brain that sometimes can't help it. Honestly, I wish
"natural," slangy speech came as naturally to me as the
stuffy stuff I often find tumbling out of my mouth.

So, anyway, I was just trying to offer some thoughts on the topic.
But if you think I'm just being pompous and would rather find ways to
put me in my place than address what I actually wrote, as this reply
would make it seem, then I will oblige and note that I also think it's
worthwhile for people to try to spell properly. Since I make even
more spelling mistakes than grammatical ones, I'm sure this will
not fail to amuse.

Tiresomely and affectedly yours,
Dominic Pease

[JimBreen]

On May 22, 1:12 pm, Dominic Pease <dominic.pe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps so, but doesn't this very fact indicate that there is an
> instinctive desire among a very broad and diverse set of people
> to follow prescriptive grammar-- even if they end up getting it
> wrong? This would seem, at any rate, to dispel the idea that
> adherence to traditional grammar is elitist snobbery, whereas

> those throwing the rules to the wind [are?] in favor of whatever is

> current is populist and down to earth. The fact is that both
> groups has its share of snobs.

I am basically in agreement with Doreen on this, however I still
try and follow the more prescriptive grammatical "rules" and I
confess I even use "whom" from time to time.

Why? Well although I agree that things like the dreaded split
infinitive are harmless and often more comfortable than the
contorted text that can arise from strict avoidance, I still don't
use them because I don't want to subject my writing to
criticism that it is "ungrammatical". I regularly submit
papers to referring processes and I don't want reviews
critical of my work because of alleged poor writing when
the fault lies with the rigidity or ignorance of the reviewer.
When one is going in to bat on intellectual content, the
last thing needed is a grammatical war which potentially
reduces the rating of a paper.

Cheers

Jim

[pls]

--- "David J. Littleboy" <dav...@gol.com> wrote:
> But as a working writer/translator, one needs to know what one's
> customers thinks they're paying for. And if the customer wants
> prescriptively correct writing, you need to be able to provide it.

Very much agreed, as regards the pragmatics of the situation. In such a
case, if the customer does not trust me (or if i don't trust myself), i
would take recourse to a well-established dictionary, style manual,
encyclopedia, or otherwise suitable reference.

Not knowing the context into which Marc's question might be fitted, i
provided a context free answer, by which i calmly stand. ;-)

Oh, and yo might enjoy this:
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2009/09/23/compassion-in-the-workplace/

Regards: Hendrik




.
--

--------------------------------------
2010 FIFA World Cup News [Yahoo!Sports/sportsnavi]
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/southafrica2010/

[Tom Donahue]

Dominic Pease writes:

> Butchering the grammar required to give your
> translation an effective tone can make an otherwise
> excellent passage pretty lame.

King James Bible
I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon
the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm,
and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
I used my great strength and my powerful arm to make the
earth along with the people and the animals on it. I give it
to anyone I please.

I don't know about you, but to me the second version
sounds like a user manual. Pretty lame it is.

From an interesting site with 15 different translations of
the same passage. All kinds of strategies for avoiding
'whom', if you want to, or using it if you like it.
http://bible.cc/jeremiah/27-5.htm

--
Tom Donahue

[Dominic Pease]

Mr. Breen attempted to correct another of my mistakes:

>> wrong? This would seem, at any rate, to dispel the idea that
>> adherence to traditional grammar is elitist snobbery, whereas
>> those throwing the rules to the wind [are?] in favor of whatever is
>> current is populist and down to earth. The fact is that both
>> groups has its share of snobs.

Actually, this is the same kind of odd mental replacement I
committed in the mistake Ms. Simmons pointed out (in the
same quoted section. Yikes!): the sentence I thought I had
written was, "adherence to traditional grammar is elitist
snobbery, whereas throwing the rules to the wind in favor of

whatever is current is populist and down to earth."

Lesson learned: proofread more, Dominic!

> Why? Well although I agree that things like the dreaded split
> infinitive are harmless and often more comfortable than the
> contorted text that can arise from strict avoidance, I still don't
> use them because I don't want to subject my writing to
> criticism that it is "ungrammatical". I regularly submit
> papers to referring processes and I don't want reviews
> critical of my work because of alleged poor writing when
> the fault lies with the rigidity or ignorance of the reviewer.
> When one is going in to bat on intellectual content, the
> last thing needed is a grammatical war which potentially
> reduces the rating of a paper.

I think this is a reasonable middle ground. I definitely agree
in principle that any rule should probably be broken if it's the
only alternative to a tortured phrase. But I do think that
grammar serves important functions in some contexts, and
that furthermore it is probably especially important to the
translator.

Dominic Pease

[Minoru Mochizuki]

For those of you who are interested in the use of who and whom, I would like
to suggest reading pp. 957-958 of Webster's Dictionary of English Usage
(1989). At least you find some interesting examples, even going back to
Shakespeare, describing that there are quite a number of Americans (as well
as Britishers) who prefer to use "who" where strict grammarians insist on
using "whom." It seems to me that there is a danger in relying on too much
who can or can't parse.

Minoru Mochizuki

[pls]

--- Tom Donahue <arri...@gmail.com> wrote:
> King James Bible
> I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon
> the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm,
> and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.

Tom,

the sentence you quote sounds poetic enough, but since a phrase like "it
seems meet unto me" is definitely not part of today's English, the judge
refuses to admit this quotation as exhibit in the current case. :-)

And to everybody:

The other examples that have been proffered in defense of "give the money
to whomever is willing to take it" have a different structure (meaning, a
structure that is different from the sentence Marc introduced);
consequently using them as evidence would be akin to comparing pears and
lemons.

Translators always say "context is everything" - and for good reasons!
Googit numbers can only tell us which of two words are used more often in
the texts on the internet that Google has catalogued at the time, but they
cannot tell us how many times "whomever" is used in phrases where it
logically matches the context and how often in phrases where it does not
match (i.e., where "whoever" would be the logically matching choice).

There is a good reason in each case that makes some of us naturally
distinguish between, for example, "I give the money to whoever is willing
to take it" and "I give the money to whomever it may please", or between
"[This letter is] to whoever may be concerned about the matter at hand" and
"[This letter is] to whom (whomever) it may concern", and so on...

Regards: Hendrik



.
--

--------------------------------------
2010 FIFA World Cup News [Yahoo!Sports/sportsnavi]
http://pr.mail.yahoo.co.jp/southafrica2010/

[pls]

--- Tom Donahue <arri...@gmail.com> wrote:

> [...] It also explains how linguists have now

> shifted from single words to clauses as the central concepts
> in syntax, which often helps in cases like this.

In other words, "context, context"... ;-)

I think it was in 1997 or 1998 when we discussed in our linguistics seminar
an at that time yet unpublished thesis or dissertation by a French
linguist, in which she argued that lexical meaning is not carried by words
alone but by the context they are embedded in, i.e., phrases. I found that
assertion rather puzzling, since i had grown up with bilingual dictionaries
that either explained the meaning of expressions by using expressions in
turn, such as, for example, German "jd. etw. geben" and English "to give
sth. to sb." or that used markers to indicate whether a verb in questions
was intransititve, transitive, ditransitive or required a preposision -
none of those dictionaries gave me just "give" for "geben". IOW, i thought
what was argued for in that paper was a given, but i realized then that i
had been mistaken in my assumption that lexicographers and academic
linguists shared basically the same kind of education and world view. ;-)

Anecdotally (and Karen plagiarisingly) yours: Hendrik

PS: Talking about plagiarism: our new mayor has just been nailed to the
cross (not really, just exposed in on of our local newspapers) for having
fleeced virtually all of the contents of his inaugural address (in April of
this year) from speeches given by the mayor of Odawara last year and this
year and then insisting that he had been given the OK to do so - the
flecee, otoh, is said to not have given such consent. This promises to be
entertaining...

[Doreen Simmons]

Don't forget, Tom, that the King James's Version was deliberately written in 'archaic' English to give it more dignity.
In any case, the use of 'whom' was standard in educated speech until well into the 20th century,
so quoting earlier examples does nothing to contribute to the current thread.

>King James Bible
>I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon
>the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm,
>and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.

[Doreen Simmons]

Jim Breen observed:

>I am basically in agreement with Doreen on this, however I still
>try and follow the more prescriptive grammatical "rules" and I
>confess I even use "whom" from time to time.

As do I -- when, for instance, drafting a speech or a letter for an elder statesman, or writing a letter in my own name to one of the rapidly-diminishing group of my elders.
OTOH, when confronted with false 'rules' such as the split infinitive nonsense,
or ending a sentence with a preposition, I take up a cudgel and jum int the fray. I do this especially in the case of
Japanese professors who still teach English in terms of Latin grammar. They sneer at the poor benighted foreigner "who has never heard of a gerund"
-- the last person who tried this on me observed in a lordly way "this structure is incorrect with a gerund" -- to which I replied calmly
"Yes, but that word ending in '-ing' is not a gerund; it is a present participle." There was a long silence at the other end, no doubt caused by frantic
looking up in an unsuccessful attempt to prove me wrong.

In Jim Breen's case (below), things are different. He is submitting papers to an 'authority' who decides the rules. My case is different, inasmuch as I am dealing with rotating bureaucrats.
After over thirty years of working in the same job, I will occasionally start a fight on a matter of principle to challenge a self-proclaimed authority. My philosophy is a simple one:
if I go down, I will take this fool with me.

>Why? Well although I agree that things like the dreaded split
>infinitive are harmless and often more comfortable than the
>contorted text that can arise from strict avoidance, I still don't
>use them because I don't want to subject my writing to
>criticism that it is "ungrammatical". I regularly submit
>papers to referring processes and I don't want reviews
>critical of my work because of alleged poor writing when
>the fault lies with the rigidity or ignorance of the reviewer.
>When one is going in to bat on intellectual content, the
>last thing needed is a grammatical war which potentially
>reduces the rating of a paper.

Doreen Simmons
jz8d...@asahi-net.or.jp

PS If I have left any typos in my comments above, there are three possible reasons:
1) I am working through a Bulletin Board service with a very small screen; (2) I have been singing on and
off since 4:30 in a British Embassy Choir warm-up and concert; and (3) I am developing a sight problem
which dies not augur well for a professional copy-editor.

[Laurie Berman]

As I see it, prescriptivist grammar can serve the same function as a
dictionary or a style sheet by arbitrarily settling issues of
mechanics that we might otherwise spend days arguing over, when we
could be spending our time more profitably. ;-) Of course, it
settles those issues on the conservative side, but that is generally
the safer bet for professionals like us.

But there is another rationale for linguistic conservatism besides
just covering one's a--. Historically, linguistic rules (grammar and
spelling) were the way a nation standardized and stabilized its
language to ensure that it didn't spin off into mutually
unintelligible dialects. Theoretically, at least, that has made the
written language accessible to everyone with a public education,
which strikes me as a good thing.

I suppose it might be argued that these days the Internet itself
works to ensure mutual comprehensibility? I don't know about that,
but I do think that by putting the brakes on grammatical change,
prescriptive grammar makes it more likely that people in the future
will be able to read what is written now without taking a college
course, just as we can understand what was written a couple centuries
ago. (But then, I suppose the very fact that I consider that a
powerful argument makes me a relic!)


Laurie Berman

[David Farnsworth]

Laurie wrote:

I suppose it might be argued that these days the Internet itself
works to ensure mutual comprehensibility? I don't know about that,
but I do think that by putting the brakes on grammatical change,
prescriptive grammar makes it more likely that people in the future
will be able to read what is written now without taking a college
course, just as we can understand what was written a couple centuries
ago. (But then, I suppose the very fact that I consider that a
powerful argument makes me a relic!)

Me:

Interesting thought. We are being coerced into the Microsoft/Google version
of prescriptivism. I find myself being pummeled all the time by Microsoft
and its spelling rules, for example. I hate spelling "judgement" as
"judgment" (both of which used to be perfectly legitimate), but have shifted
to the latter just to avoid getting that hated red line in my copy (and
having a client query me on my inability to spell properly). My latest pet
peeve is having the latest version of my word software automatically correct
my spelling of cafe to add a French e, so that it looks like café. This is
NOT English. It is French, and I refuse to spell it this way. Yet I have no
choice in this Internet age. (sigh)

David Farnsworth @ Fast becoming an old curmudgeon
Tigard OR

[Susan Mast]

From: "David Farnsworth"

> My latest pet peeve is having the latest version of my word software automatically correct
> my spelling of cafe to add a French e, so that it looks like café. This is
> NOT English. It is French, and I refuse to spell it this way. Yet I have no
> choice in this Internet age. (sigh)

You have a choice. 
Word Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect Options
Find the automatic corrections that you don't like and delete them.  While you're at it, you can add AutoCorrect entries that are actually useful, such as correcting to Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology when you type Monbusho.  Alternatively, you can turn off AutoCorrect altogether.

 

Susan Mast

Lancaster, PA

 

[David Farnsworth]

Thanks for the reminder.

 

However, my complaint still stands. Café spelled French Style has now officially entered the English language because it is the default Microsoft spelling. Even if I fix it manually for myself, everyone else will be letting it stand…

 

David Farnsworth

 

 

From: hon...@googlegroups.com [mailto:hon...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Susan Mast
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2010 12:11 PM
To: hon...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: whoever? whomever?

 

From: "David Farnsworth"

[Mark Stevenson]

Marc Adler wrote:
> I'm not wringing my hands.
> I went out of my way to make sure people understood I wanted the
> prescriptivist answer.
> I don't use "whom" in speech.
> I do know the prescriptivist rules.

OK, sorry. But a mini great debate ensued from your question, so my
comment was directed at a more general audience rather than you
personally. Sincerest apologies if it sounded like a barbed personal
retort.

Best regards

Mark Stevenson

[Marc Adler]

On Mon, May 24, 2010 at 7:22 PM, Mark Stevenson <mark...@gmail.com> wrote:

OK, sorry. But a mini great debate ensued from your question, so my
comment was directed at a more general audience rather than you
personally. Sincerest apologies if it sounded like a barbed personal
retort.

No problem.

Alright, so I guess the answer is there is no way to account for this usage according to classical rules of grammar. Another "hole" in the language, like the verb number to use with and/or constructions. And takes plural. Or takes singular.

"Document 1 and/or document 2 describe/s"? ;)
 

--
Marc Adler
http://www.linkedin.com/in/adlerpacific

[Laurie Berman]

On May 25, 2010, at 11:58 AM, Marc Adler wrote:
>
> Alright, so I guess the answer is there is no way to account for
> this usage according to classical rules of grammar.

Well, I'm reluctant to drag this out any further, but I'm really not
sure why persist in saying that. I think there have been a number of
good explanations--especially the one I posted. ;-)

At the risk of being repetitive, Bernstein explains that the object
of the preposition or verb is the entire clause, not the pronoun per
se. A good parallel would be "Let he who has never sinned cast the
first stone," in which the the relative clause "who has . . ." is
restrictive. It has been pointed out that this "rule" hasn't always
been the rule, but it does appear to be now, and the explanation for
it strikes me as consistent with the rules of (English) grammar.

One might also note that if we wanted to make the clause
nonrestrictive, we could say, "Let him, who has never sinned, cast
the first stone, . . ." but in that case, one has a single, specific
person in mind. This does not parallel the example you originally
posted.

Okay, I'm done.


Laurie Berman

[Mika J.]

It may not be prescriptive enough, but I wonder if it may be explained with center of attention in mind.  It's how I read English when translating into Japanese.  Pardon me if this has been mentioned already.

>as the second implies that you are thinking of someone in particular. This is a key point, I think.
これと似たようなことを別の言葉でとらえただけかもしれませんが。

下のWhomeverは「将来のYOUの出会い」を指す順行照応(後方照応)ととらえることはできるでしょうか？
Whomever you meet there is bound to be interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_%28pronoun%29
これを訳すなら、YOUを天動説的な中心に据えて
（あそこでは、君なら）「面白い人物に出会わないはずがない」「怖い・嫌な・つまらない人に出会ったりはしないさ」
などが候補になりそうです。

Boss:"Who's going to take these?"
Secretary:"Whomever." 
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005054.html
(If I were to translate the secretary's response into Japanese, I'd extract "Take them to him, or her, but don't bother me,"  as in さあね、知ったこっちゃない。)

I’ll kill whoever did this. 
http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2007/10/21/whomever-is-never-actually-right/
(Focus is more on "this" thing that happened, rather than the speaker's plan to kill.  「殺してやる」よりも「なんとひどいことをしでかしてくれたのか」の方に重点があると解釈。)

それで最初の例も（将来行動への）提案であるため、
whoeverを使って「お金をほしがっている人(who is willing to take it)」を指す順行照応(後方照応)にした方がすわりがいい、と。
"Give the money to whoever is willing to take it."

おまけ：
Ryan: What I really want, honestly Michael, is for you to know it, so that you can communicate it to the people here, to your clients, to whomever.
…communicate it to whomever you need to communicate it to.
…communicate it to whoever needs to know it.

Is it whomever or whoever?  これを翻訳の目で見ると、Ryanの言葉からはMichaelに対する不満を抽出することができます。
"I want YOU to know, so YOU can communicate it to whomever. "
It then becomes hard (at least for me) to imagine "whoever" ever acceptable in this case.

Michael: [chuckle] OK.
Ryan: What?
Michael: It’s whoever, not whomever.
Ryan: No, it’s whomever.

話がせっかくまとまったあたりで、全然わかっていない輩がしゃしゃり出てぶちこわすようなことになっては申し訳ありません。見当違いでしたらそっと耳打ちしてやってください。


Mika Jarmusz 清水美香
       English to Japanese Translator
       http://inJapanese.us

[Dominic Pease]

2010/5/25 Mika J. <mik...@gmail.com>:

> It may not be prescriptive enough, but I wonder if it may be explained with
> center of attention in mind. It's how I read English when translating into
> Japanese. Pardon me if this has been mentioned already.

I don't think this quite covers it. English is pretty often insensitive
in points of grammar to matters like center of attention (although
it does recognize such considerations, such as word choice,
certainly).

> 下のWhomeverは「将来のYOUの出会い」を指す順行照応(後方照応)ととらえることはできるでしょうか？
> Whomever you meet there is bound to be interesting.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_%28pronoun%29
> これを訳すなら、YOUを天動説的な中心に据えて
> （あそこでは、君なら）「面白い人物に出会わないはずがない」「怖い・嫌な・つまらない人に出会ったりはしないさ」
> などが候補になりそうです。

The emphasis you read into the sentence is perhaps true, but
the grammar doesn't depend on it. You could expess the same
idea as, "Whoever is waiting for you there is bound to be
interesting." The structure of the relative clause makes the
prescriptive grammar unambiguous: in the first example above,
"whomever" is the object of "meet", whereas in my rewritten
example, "whoever" is the subject of "is waiting".

>
> Boss:"Who's going to take these?"
> Secretary:"Whomever."
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005054.html
> (If I were to translate the secretary's response into Japanese, I'd extract
> "Take them to him, or her, but don't bother me," as in さあね、知ったこっちゃない。)

This strikes me as a slightly odd answer, but I'm sure it's
colloquial somewhere. Prescriptively, I think it's wrong, though;
the answer to "Who's going to take these?" should be a form
of "X is going to take these," where X is the subject. Therefore,
even assuming I wanted to use a form of 'who(m)ever,' I would
use "Whoever."

The same analysis goes for your other examples, as well as
for the debate from that Office scene: if viewed as a part of a
fused relative clause, then technically either 'whoever' or
'whomever' could be considered correct, regardless of viewpoint.
It's a grammatical toss-up.

However, I think one intresting fact bears repeating, which was
touched on only by Mr. Spahn toward the beginning of this
conversation, as far as I can see. The detached use of "to
who(m)ever" (and similar constructions), with the supposed
implicit relative clause, is commonly used with almost as little
meaning as a simple discourse marker. It's basically become
a placeholder for things you acknowledge or are forced to say,
but don't know or care enough to name. This can happen in a
variety of sentence positions, including the subject: "I removed
the access code so that whoever can get in." (Note that the
speaker isn't using 'whoever' to introduce a relative clause,
unless you parse this as an implicit fused relative.)

Therefore, I think that this word is functionally similar to
'してある' in Japanese: it calls attention to something unspoken
and even affects the grammar of the clause it inhabits, but it's
often used in passing and without much specific content. In
most cases, it would bear direct translation, and the contents
of the implicit relative clause aren't (for the purposes of
translation) really worth even guessing about. Surely, it is most
often better to translate it either with some contextually
appropriate sleight of hand-- or not at all.

If I had to translate "Give the money to who(m)ever" into
Japanese, I would probably just skip the whole issue and write,
"適当に配って" or something similar.

Given this, I think Ms. Jarmusz has a point in one respect:
independent uses of who(m)ever, like the ones I am
discussing, are almost always used in contexts which DO
reflect the speaker's point of view, or sense of his listener's
point of view. Specifically, it can allude to (but leave vague)
something which both parties are clearly thinking about. (Or,
as mentioned, sometimes it just smooths out the sentence
flow like an interjection or discourse marker, which is perhaps
much the same.)

Dominic Pease