Wednesday, November 09, 2011

Now obsolete?

Doesn't anybody ever say "whom" anymore?

(I've got a dog in this fight.  I used to be very good -- expert, even -- at knowing when to use who and when to  use whom when I was in seventh grade.)

Update:  No, it's not obsolete.  In fact,
Our evidence shows that no one—English or not—should expect whom to disappear momentarily; it shows every indication of persisting quite a while yet. Actual usage of who and whom—accurately described at the entries in this dictionary—does not appear to be markedly different from the usage of Shakespeare's time. But the 18th century grammarians, propounding rules and analogies, rejecting other rules and analogies, and usually justifying both with appeals to Latin or Greek, have intervened between us and Shakespeare. It seems clear that the grammarians' rules have had little effect on the traditional uses.
However, the dictionary does concede that the word is "now often considered stilted especially as an interrogative and especially in oral use."

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