Re: "To whom"

On Tue, Jan 25, 2005 at 06:57:01PM +0000, Chris Bates wrote:
> To me any relative formed with whom only sounds borderline
> grammatical: it's not just old fashioned, it feels wrong.
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.)

What I object to is your saying it's "tortured English", or that anyone
who uses "whom" *at*all* - as myself, Andreas, Sally, and several other
people on this list have admitted to doing all the time! - is "trying to
sound like royalty".  Alternatively, we have "been taught the fictional
English of prescriptivist teachers".  Well, we certainly have been taught
prescriptivist English; of that there is no question.  But I would not
describe English subject to such rules as "fictional", and I also take
offense at the implication that we are blindly following these
"fictional" rules when we should know better.

I am a native speaker of English, and I use 'whom' in my everyday
speech, and I am not alone.  I am not trying to sound like royalty.  I
am not trying to sound pretentious in any way.  I don't make a point of
it; I don't "correct" others when they *don't* use whom, or anything so
obnoxious.  I fully realize that "whom" is all but gone from the living
language - but it is not *yet* gone, and I will not apologize for
maintaining a distinction which I continue to find useful.

(I feel like I'm standing up at the lectern in an Alcoholic's Anonymous
meeting.  "My name is Mark, and I use 'whom'. <choke>"  And why the heck
do they call it "Alcoholics *Anonymous*" when the first thing you do is
introduce yourself??)

Anyway, to summarize:

FACT: Most English speakers and writers do not use "whom" at all.

REPORTED FACT: When someone does use "whom", it grates on your ear.

NO LONGER FACT: attacks against the practice of using "whom"

WAY BEYOND THE PALE: Ad hominem attacks against those who practice it

-Marcos

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