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English whom | ||
Tags: Morphology | English | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| 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 17 of 63 18 December 2013 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Grammatical direct and indirect object (and other cases of the pronoun when it is not used as a subject). However colloquially contraction to "who" is common and allowed (I wouldn't fall over it). In formal writing I do recommend "whom". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 18 of 63 18 December 2013 at 6:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would expect that the HTLAL crowd is significantly to understand and employ "whom"
correctly than the average. While I will on occasion, in informal contexts, use "who" as either a direct object pronoun or indirect object pronoun, I often feel icky about it. Now that you mention it, though, I feel MUCH more comfortable using "who" in a direct object situation than in an indirect object situation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3998 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 19 of 63 18 December 2013 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In the US, we only say "to whom it concerns." That's it, pretty much. Can't think of any other examples of "normal" use of whom.
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| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5229 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 20 of 63 18 December 2013 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not true, in my experience. Although "whom" is used more by older speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| culebrilla Senior Member United States Joined 3998 days ago 246 posts - 436 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 21 of 63 18 December 2013 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
We just need more Americans to respond to see what it's like. I'm from the midwest, if that helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4689 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 22 of 63 18 December 2013 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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What am I, chopped liver? ;-)
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| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 23 of 63 18 December 2013 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I attended a Catholic primary school, and if I remember correctly, I felt that there
was no way in hell (no pun intended) that one could not graduate without knowing when to use "who" and the dative "whom" correctly. Every school year, there was a unit on "who and "whom" in a class that I had that was called "English Grammar". I had "English Grammar" until age 6 to approximately age 13. I remember in this big English grammar book, during the "who"/"whom" unit, the teachers would drill "who " an "whom" usages through reading the text out loud first during lessons. It was something like this, Student 1: "The subject pronoun is manifested by 'who' at the beginning of subordinate clauses..." ... Student 15: "Whom is utilised for the function of personal object pronouns as such..." ... Then, approximately 30 oral exercises followed by 40 written exercises, like such: Ex. 5.2) Fill in the blanks with either "who" or "whom". 1. The man to _____ I had given the Christmas gift joined us for dinner. 2. The committee, _____ functions as the head of the company, initiated the meeting. 3. For _____ shall the postman deliver this parcel? I remember doing this every year. In essays, or written assignments otherwise, mistaking "who" for "whom" would be a serious error. It was a "special" error, in a bad way, because that was one concept that supercedes other grammatical aspects in terms of importance. Sometimes massive marks were subtracted herefore (sometimes more than one third of the marks of the assignment for one transgression with "who" for "whom"). We were also taught to never let prepositionshang, i.e. a sentence as "The man who I gave the gift to" was a serious "no-no", not only the wrong pronoun "who", but the hanging preposition. That could be the subtraction of marks equivalent to if one misspelt 30 words in an essay. Anyway, I remember even at ten years old, "who" and "whom distinctions were easy because of these practises. The exercises were like FSI drills, not only for "who" and "whom", but all other aspects of English grammar. I suppose that one hour of English grammar per day for all of primary school would help. I think that in the Germanic languages, including English, it is possible to avoid the accusative "whom" by using a pronomial adverb, but only in informal speech: For whom-->wherefore To whom-->whereto With whom-->wherewith Across from whom-->whereacrossfrom Towards whom-->wheretowards About whom-->whereabout/whereover where the pronoun "whom" is morphed into "where" in the pronomial adverb, but in correct written speech, "where" only substitutes "which" and "what", viz. inanimative objects. Similar to like how in Dutch, "aan wie" is preferred in written language to "waaraan", i.e. "De man waar ik het cadeau aan gegeven heb"/"De man waaraan ik het cadeau gegeven heb" Edited by 1e4e6 on 18 December 2013 at 10:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4291 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 24 of 63 18 December 2013 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
Also, all of my e-mails are written as such: "To whom this shall concern [body] Thank you. Yours faithfully, [my name]" so some variants therewith exist. Also, I think that "For Whom the Bell Tolls" is a Metallica song. Perhaps that popularised it? It also helped that I used to listen to metal when I was in primary school. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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