Re: "To whom"

Chris, as I said in my post, whom can be commonly
heard and seen outside of "to whom". Furthermore, "to
whom" is not always pretentious sounding as it is in
phrases such as "to whom did you give the book?".
Furtherfurthermore, the rule which states one cannot
end on a preposition was an artificial rule introduced
from other languages- English always has allowed final
preositions (in speech, and in writing).

To me it sounds right, absolutely; altho' affected in
one or two instances (such as above). It is the same
case and all as 'him' and 'her' etc, and they do not
sound incorrect to me. It has a long way to go afore
it passes into the realms of thou/thee/ye (altho' they
actually feel natural to me, and I've no problem using
them, but I would prick my ears if I heard them in
normal non-theatrical/religious speech).

Some instances of who for whom- such as "who do you
like"- sound okay to me, just as "whom do you like"
does, but where "whom" appears last or middle-ish in
the clause, it feels totally wrong to use "who" (my
example of "the woman whom I love").

In my view, it is grammatical to phrase yourself so as
to make use of "whom" or "who", so far as it is
possible to paraphrase yourself in any given instance,
but to use whom where one should who who, and vice
versa, is incorrect, and there is obviously more of an
inkling of the correct usage of these forms as I hear
them ALL THE TIME (and mostly, despite what you think,
they are extensively used by laymen and non-pedants;
my university lecturers are too trendy to use "whom").


Bryan


P.S. But to "should of" etc: written language is
different conventionally to spoken language. To many,
"should of" is grammatical. I would contest its
grammaticality, tho'.

 --- Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
wrote:
> >On another side note, if the dropping of whom
> should be considered
> >the standard just because people do it all the
> time, then maybe
> >"could of" and "definatly" should also be
> considered the correct
> >forms, and everything else be decried as arrogance.
> >
> >
> >
> But the problem is, these are far from being
> standard in the written
> language. On the other hand, I hear "whom"
> practically never in speech,
> and only see it extremely rarely in print even in
> formal books that have
> been printed this century, and see postponed
> prepositions used to form
> oblique relatives all the time (ie it IS the
> standard written usage). I
> mean, I study maths and read maths textbooks for my
> course and
> linguistics books as a hobby, and you can't get a
> greater group of
> pedants than mathematicians and linguists. Yet
> apparently they're all
> writing non-standard English by not using "whom".
> How can "whom" be the
> formal written standard if practically no one uses
> it in writing outside
> of a few proverbs and phrases (and if we accept them
> as evidence, we
> have to accept evidence that a whole lot of other
> long dead things
> fossilized in sayings are still grammatical in
> English)? I'm sorry, but
> I just can't accept that it's still in widespread
> use even in the
> written language because I read large numbers of
> books on a wide range
> of topics, from fiction to very technical and formal
> books, and I
> practically never come across it in anything written
> this century. And I
> certainly never hear anyone say it where I live
> outside of those one or
> two old fashioned set phrases. To me any relative
> formed with whom only
> sounds borderline grammatical: it's not just old
> fashioned, it feels wrong.
>
=====
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

	-- William Butler Yeats


	
	
		
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