Hooray!

From the Boston Globe (via Bookslut):

''Beginning a question with whom in contemporary standard English would not just be unusual, it would be bizarre," says linguist Geoffrey Pullum, coauthor of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. ''Insisting on whom, as some people still do when writing for print, is more and more looking like an affectation," says Pullum, who's currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute in Cambridge.

There are lots of language changes that I hate:  'nite', 'lite', 'kewl'...

But ditching the word 'whom'?  Go for it.

Comments

[steve]

I think "whom" has its place. I think it's over-and-missused, though. "who should I make the ckeck out to" just sounds clumsy to me when compared with ""to whom should I make out the check."

But typically, I agree that wee can usually get away with "who."

[Leila]

Mostly, I just dislike it because every single time I figure it out and get it straight, I forget how it works in about five minutes. So I blame the word for my own stupidity.

[C.C.]

No, no, no, no. NO! The English language has too few sensible syntax rules as it is, and this is just the difference between a subjective case and an oblique case of the noun. Think of it this way: replace the relative or interoggative pronoun with the word "he" or "him." If you would use hiM, use whoM.

Sorry, but I love the word "whom."

[Leila]

At this very moment, I am sticking my tongue out at the monitor.

Here's my rule: When in doubt, rearrange the entire sentence to avoid the problem. YAR!

(Besides, you lost me at the different cases, smartypants. Okay, it's possible that I might remember him/whom. But I'll probably stick to my rearrangement arrangement.)