The simple answer is that if you can use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153him,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you can use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 if \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he\u00e2\u20ac\u009d fits, use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153who.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That was my proposed subject for this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column.<\/p>\n
We were in the Optic newsroom as I spouted this bit of faux erudition, when fellow writer Lupita Gonzales said that when it comes to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whom,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we need to think of objects, not subjects. As a now-retired long-time teacher of languages, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right.<\/p>\n
Is there a construction in English that causes more confusion? Even Hollywood aggravates the issue when it popularizes expressions like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Or is it whom?)<\/p>\n
Well yes there are a couple of grammar and usage questions that can rival the who-whom syndrome: Try the there-they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re-their conundrum. Actually, in a mere five words, my friend Chad Boliek, submitted this in response to my having broached the there-their-they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re issue in a recent column. Chad wrote: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re there awaiting their bus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen Facebook posts poking fun at us language purists. A cartoon shows a sympathetic older person, \u00c2\u00a0his arm around the grammarian, consoling him with, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There, their, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not so bad.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
But back to the who-whom issue: My homeroom teacher at Immaculate Conception School, Sister Mary Precisa Grammatica, must have given us the rules on when to use who and whom. When you put a preposition in front of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whom,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy and usually correct: to whom it may concern; from whom did you get that hickey?<\/p>\n
If the word functions as the subject of the sentence, use who; if the object, use whom. It gets tricky in constructions like who\/m do you trust?<\/p>\n
Having slept through junior high school, I was late in picking up these \u00c2\u00a0rules. So I used to fudge: I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d camouflage the expression and say something like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He is the one whomight be calling,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whomay I ask is calling?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The word following the who\/m disguised my statement and left me free to say, if a wide-awake fellow student challenged me, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I said.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Is there a future for whom? Will enough people simply relegate whom to that giant lexical scrap heap in the sky to where the word becomes as obsolete as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amongst\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153amidst\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Will whom join \u00e2\u20ac\u0153farther,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which used to refer to distance (its sister, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153further\u00e2\u20ac\u009d used to mean more or additional)? Is it time for us (or is it we?) comma-chasers to yield? It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look promising when even \u00c2\u00a0the late William Safire, the New York Times\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 oracle of language, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The best rule for dealing with who vs. whom is this: Whenever whom is required, recast the sentence.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0Of course, that means dodging the matter altogether or using the bland \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which can refer to anything, not just people.<\/p>\n
Garber, writing in this month\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Atlantic,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said she expects \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to disappear in 50 to 100 years. Why? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One explanation,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gerber writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153is that the word has outlived its ability to fulfill the most important function of language: to clarify and specify. More importantly, the writer asserts, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Correctness is significantly less appealing when its price is the appearance of being . . . a pompous twerp.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d do anything to avoid that twerpy distinction, even if it means skirting \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d entirely.<\/p>\n
In my experience as someone who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s recited who-whom rules ever since the Punic Wars, we misuse who and whom mainly when speaking; while writing, we have time to think about the choices, or to recast the sentence.<\/p>\n
Gerber mentions what language scholars call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153secondary orality,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the dreadful habit of having writing, which as a rule is slightly more formal than speech, adopt characteristics of the spoken word. We see evidence of this in our texting. LOL.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2\u00e2\u20ac\u201a\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
How does one explain the complete and total pasting Harvard gave the Lobos? The Crimson, who had never won an NCAA tournament game, truncated the Lobos\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 stay after many New Mexico bright-eyed optimists predicted a Final Four appearance for our team.<\/p>\n
That game was the biggest shock of the tournament (until Georgetown and Gonzaga, two highly ranked teams, also lost).
\nThe irony of the New Mexico-Harvard outcome is that the depth Harvard players possess is in the classroom, not the basketball court. And, according to Jay Leno of The Tonight Show, Harvard players need to improve their trash talk.<\/p>\n
You see, the Crimson take a different tack, far removed from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna rip your lips off and stomp on your face\u00e2\u20ac\u009d threats of many teams.<\/p>\n
Leno said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At one point Harvard\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s center said to the Lobo guard, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcExcuse me. You are trying to restrain me from adding additional points. You are woefully unsuccessful.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The simple answer is that if you can use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153him,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you can use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 if \u00e2\u20ac\u0153he\u00e2\u20ac\u009d fits, use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153who.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That was my proposed subject for this week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column. We were in the Optic newsroom as I spouted this bit of faux erudition, when fellow writer Lupita Gonzales said that when it comes to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whom,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}