prescriptivism, conventions, irony

[Lynne Murphy]

--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


M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320