murky days on the WHO/WHOM front

[Peter A. McGraw]

"Whom" in this context (subject of a subordinate clause which itself is the
object of a preposition or the main-clause verb) is suddenly running
rampant.  I hear it so often (especially from academics and journalists, it
seems) that I wonder if a syntactic reanalysis of some sort is actually
taking root.

Peter Mc.

--On Thursday, March 28, 2002 7:35 AM -0500 "Dennis R. Preston"
<preston at PILOT.MSU.EDU> wrote:

>> Ther are many traps for WHOMers (one of the most important
>> sociolinguistic subgroups in US society) out there; this one
>> obviosuly fell prey to the rule "use 'whom' after a preposition."
>> Didn't this guy's mom tell him to look left AND right before
>> attaching an -m?
>
> dInIs
>
>
>
>> from a letter today (3/27/02) to the New York Times, from
>> Marc F. Bernstein, Chief Academic Officer, Kaplan K12
>> Learning Services, New York, about funding for New York City
>> schools:
>>
>>  Regardless of whom should be blamed, it's the students who
>>  will suffer.
>>
>> i wonder if he'd have committed himself to something like
>>  Regardless of whom is blamed,...
>>
>> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>
> --
> Dennis R. Preston
> Department of Linguistics and Languages
> Michigan State University
> East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
> preston at pilot.msu.edu
> Office: (517)353-0740
> Fax: (517)432-2736



****************************************************************************
                               Peter A. McGraw
                   Linfield College   *   McMinnville, OR
                            pmcgraw at linfield.edu