Re: "To whom"

Or not. "Whom" as a word certainly is still much in
use. For instance, "She's a woman whom I love" does
not sound at all pretentous to me. Likewise other
formations with whom. However, "to whom" CAN work
without sounding pretentious, but only in the right
context (e.g. Person A: "I'm giving this to him."
Person B: "To whom?")

Note that the rule stating you cannot end sentences a
preposition with was one of those "latin" borrowings-
Old English found nothing wrong with ending a sentence
or clause a preposition with. It is just people
admired latin so much that they tried to fit English
into its patterns (hence other nonsenses such as the
split infinitive "rule")

cheers,
Bryan


P.S. To make it clear, if that is needed: I agree "to
whom" is mostly stuffy, but whom constructions, even
to whom, can be used without sounding stuffy.
Furthermore they do have some real and useful
functions, still very much common in spoken English
to-day.



 --- Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
wrote:
>  As far as I'm concerned, "the person to whom it
> happened" isn't
> standard written English, it's the tortured English
> of old fashioned
> style grammar teachers. Perhaps it used to be
> correct, but not anymore,
> and everyone I know, including my old English
> teacher, would write "the
> person (who/that) it happened to" so it hardly
> counts as colloquial.
> Anyone who uses "whom" at all here either: a) is the
> Queen/other member
> of the royal family, b) is trying to sound like
> royalty, or c) has been
> taught the fictional English of prescriptivist
> teachers.
>  Anyway, my point is that using "to whom" rather
> than postponing the
> preposition until after the verb is not standard
> written English, even
> if it used to be, because that usage is pretty much
> dead in the written
> as well as the spoken language, so it's hardly
> standard. Similarly,
> everyone I know postpones the preposition in writing
> as well, so here at
> least it's not just a colloquial spoken form, but is
> in fact the
> standard way of forming oblique relatives in both
> the spoken and written
> language.
>  *deep breath* Sorry for the rant, I just objected
> to you calling that
> word order "colloquial" and implying that the other
> is "standard". ;)
>
> >So if you do use that word order, you're already
> speaking colloquial
> >English, not standard written English, so the
> grammar rules are
> >different.
> >
> >
> >
>
=====
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

	-- William Butler Yeats


	
	
		
___________________________________________________________
ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com