prescriptivism

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 05:23 PM 1/31/01 +0000, you wrote:
>--On Wednesday, January 31, 2001 12:02 pm -0500 Beverly Flanigan
><flanigan at OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU> wrote:
>
>>   Has
>>anyone else noticed the (seemingly) increasing use of "whom" generally in
>>the media?  Even our student newspaper is using it more, and it
>>invariably sounds stilted.
>
>One person's 'stilted' is another's 'melodious'.  While we claim that all
>varieties are equally complex and potentially lovely, there does seem to be
>a bias against the 'overt prestige' forms on the list!
>
>Lynne
>

Context is everything.  I'm thinking of student columns and editorials that
typically take a colloquial tone and then add something like "whom he gave
it to."  I like the colloquialism of the stranded preposition, but it
sounds stilted to use a fronted "whom" with it.  I am a user myself of
"whom" following a prep. (in fact, I had to insist an editor change 'who'
to 'whom' after a prep. in one of my articles!), but 'who' sounds, and even
reads, better to me now in other contexts.  And besides, as Larry noted,
I'd rather see generalized 'who' than a hypercorrected 'whom' where no
"ordinary" person would use it!

I'm a bit prescriptive myself though.  For example, I'm fussy about using
"I" instead of "me" as the subject of a comparative complement clause, as
in "He knows better than me/I ...."

_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm