Re: "To whom"

>You didn't reply to my point, Chris.  I was responding to your tone, not
>your facts.  Saying "It feels wrong/ungrammatical/old-fashioned to me"
>would have been completely inoffensive.    (Saying it "isn't standard
>written English" is a statement of fact, but even so, it depends
>entirely upon your definition of "standard".  Personally, I think the AP Style
>Guide is a pretty good standard, and it still maintains the who/whom
>distinction, but never mind.)
>
>
*deep breath* Okay, maybe I overreacted. But the implication I got from
what I originally replied to was that using "whom" is standard standard
formal English, and I really don't think it is. It passed long ago from
being standard formal English into being for most people archaic and
thus not really standard language at all. I'm sorry if I sounded
agressive, I just objected to the strongly to the statement that "whom"
was proper formal English vesus the now standard way of forming oblique
relatives which was labelled "Colloquial" English (and by implication
that anyone who doesn't ever use it doesn't write formal English).
That's all. I'm willing to accept that "whom" is acceptable in formal
English if other people are willing to stop stating that the alternative
is not correct formal English.