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A Short Missive on “Whom”
To Who It May Concern
I am not a violent man. But I have had it up to here!
I can’t stand it anymore. I want to invite every reader to join me in a conspiracy to commit murder.
It has insinuated itself into our lives. Eating away at our brains. Putting us on the defensive, chipping away at our self-esteem, confusing us into pointless pauses, enslaving us into just trying to get it right.
And to what purpose?
Admit it. You were looking at the salutation of this post and thinking about it, weren’t you?
I speak of whom.
Why, why, why, why, why, why?
Who grew up speaking it without special education? Who comes upon it naturally in daily speech? Who did this to us?
Let’s face it. The quadratic equation is rare but particularizes something useful. Hegemony is a rare word but distinguishes something useful. The Pythagorean Comma is rare but occasionally it’s useful, for a few specialists.
What use is whom? What real difference has it ever made? Yeah, yeah, it distinguishes the object from the subject in a sentence, but who friggin’ cares?
When has there been a real lack of clarity when it’s missing in common usage?
Sure, you can construct an example sentence to show a possible ambiguity, but who would say such a thing? By who would it be said?
Let’s murder it now, together, and bury it in the backyard, wrapped in lime and dissolved in acid. No more whom. No more pauses in deciding what the proper form of who is. No more pauses each time we come across it, trying to decide if it was used correctly. No more “Oh, by the way, that should be whom.”
Let’s be assassins. Let’s stake this grammatical vampire in its academic black heart.
Die, die, die, die, die, haunted thing that should have decayed centuries ago!
Published in Humor
Indeed. If there’s one thing that drives me up the wall, it’s those who consistently use “whom” because they’re afraid that using “who” might be tag them as deplorable. Perhaps you fell for it. Perhaps not. Whom knows? Certainly not me. Or “I,” as it should more properly be.
Are you kidding me? How can you you so cavalierly assume someone’s pronouns. You have got to get with the program if you want to survive the coming purge.
Nobody appreciates my pronouns, “hee” “haw.”
You use whatever words you want to use. Don’t worry, I will judge you by your choices.
Irregardless of what everyone’s said, I’m going to continue on as I always have…
Now that one makes me nuts! Stop it! ;-)
I knew I’d hit a nerve if I drilled long enough…
@drbastiat Can you get away with a semicolon without the use of a colostomy bag?
I would think you would need a semicolonostomy bag.
Moan. Groan. Ew.
There’s this bit of annoyance that has grated on I ever since the song was released. Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait”
So open up your morning light
And say a little prayer for I
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the love in every eye
And she uses it three times in the song. Ugh. It got a lot of play when it came out and I started changing the station to avoid that line.
Exactly ew. Especially if it leaks. Too many semicolons together and they begin to really stink.
To quote the great lyricist: I am, I said. I am, said I. And no one cared at all, not even a chair.
Paging @markcamp………
I’m guessing that you might be asking me (in a teasing way, but half-seriously, kind of the way I do sometimes) to weigh in on the “why-is-our-language-like-this?” questions raised by the article.
If something else, let me know.
If so, then this. I didn’t do so, even though these questions have fascinated me since I was a little boy. Basically, when (a) I think I’ve figured out the answer to interesting questions after fifty years of continual struggle, and (b) think I can help the next generation of instinctively curious humans with the struggle, I do so.
In this case (a) but not (b).
I love the comments!
Racist!
Okay then, Is it “Dr. Who” or “Dr. Whom”?
Just another service I provide for my Stad Club Platinum members:
https://upjoke.com/english-teacher-jokes
Update: My favorite one of the bunch (and one that made my wife groan):
“I had sex with my 10th grade English teacher. So what if it took 36 years and required me to become a mortician?”
Cue the groans . . .
Hey, that’s just a conspiracy launched by the Daleks!
I always wonder who made the first Dalek and why they though plungers would be intimidating.
It can not only morph to fit around panels and buttons to use as an actual manipulator, but it can also form a tight seal around a human’s face to suffocate them to death and also apply enough force to crush a man’s skull like it was polystyrene.
And it’s easier for little kids to play pretend by making their own Dalek.
Dr. Who just never worked for me. The doctor just seems too whimpy and philosophically pathetic.