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English whom | ||
Tags: Morphology | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 1 of 63 18 December 2013 at 9:50am | IP Logged | ||
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The word "whom" has pretty much vanished from everday English speech and even in written communication there is a tendency to avoid it, unless the message is highly formal or the writer is a grammar buff.
For example, there is a thread on General Discussion entitled "Whom would meet if you could". It would never even cross my mind to use whom here, I would simply use "who". Similarly, I would say "who did you go with" rather than "with whom did you go" Do people in non-English speaking countries get drilled in the difference between who and whom? I guess it helps if your native language also has a similar concept. Strangely, in German I have no problem employing wer/wen/wem correctly but I learned this as a series of rules, whereas with English I have simply been guided by the flow. Did English once have a dative case and "whom" is some sort of hangover? Edited by beano on 18 December 2013 at 9:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5566 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 63 18 December 2013 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Whom is a remnant of the Old English dative case , but it also has taken on the
functions of the OE accusative case - which is perhaps why it sometimes appears odd. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 63 18 December 2013 at 10:48am | IP Logged | ||
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There is a nice discussion here:
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/13983/is-it-corre ct-to-say-that-english-has-the-dative-case Him and Her are also remnants of the dative in English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 4 of 63 18 December 2013 at 11:03am | IP Logged | ||
No, we don't. We were taught to use only "who", while "whom" was only mentioned as possible variant. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 63 18 December 2013 at 11:19am | IP Logged | ||
Why would you? It's probably a subtle C2 level distinction now in English. To say "For who the bell tolls" sounds wrong, "for whom the bell tolls" sounds correct, but who (whom?) really cares? Edited by patrickwilken on 18 December 2013 at 11:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 6 of 63 18 December 2013 at 11:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Who cares. Whom is only for objects.
For whom the bell tolls is a fixed expression and thus requires whom. Edited by tarvos on 18 December 2013 at 11:29am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 7 of 63 18 December 2013 at 11:34am | IP Logged | ||
Like in "To whom did you give the gift?". Sorry my grammar is weak. I am not sure what you mean by "objects". Edited by patrickwilken on 18 December 2013 at 11:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4640 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 8 of 63 18 December 2013 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think tarvos refers to the grammatical term as in direct object, indirect object, as opposed to the subject.
My school teacher insisted a lot on us using the correct form of "who" when we wrote English, so I still write things like "Whom did you meet yesterday?" I guess that makes me either old-fashioned or pedantic. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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