Whom, by the Great Rotating Rod!

Post #275,190 by CRConrad 12/8/06 4:43:41 PM Reply	Whom, by the Great Rotating Rod! Here's a tip: Whenever you're in doubt about whether it should be "who" or "whom", just replace it with "he" or "him". Here, that (both variants) would look clumsy, because "who" is more flexible than "he" and works to tie two disparate sub-clauses together into a sentence in a way that "he" can't... but if we split it up into its constituent parts and do the replacement separately for each, then it works. So: "It depends on he", or "It depends on him"? "He's running against he", or "He's running against him"? In both cases, it's the version with the 'm' at the end that looks best, isn't it? And therefore, it should be the version of "who" that has an 'm' at the end, too: "It depends on whom he's running against." HTH! [link\|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode\|Christian R. Conrad] (I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.) Ah, the Germans: Masters of Convoluted Simplification. — [link\|http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=1603\|Jehovah]
Post #275,194 by Another Scott 12/8/06 5:19:52 PM Reply	Ack! Thanks! Cheers, Scott. (Who knew this stuff at one time, but has forgotten it due to lack of use.)
Post #275,258 by Ashton 12/9/06 4:05:36 AM Reply	Let's do ___ 'It's me!' Convoluted Simplifications LLC Div. Confounding Contradictions Gmbh But as to who(m) - I too never/rarely try to recollect the mechanical parsing rulez of eons back. "How does it scan" - isn't precise, but properly pulses 'all experience'. I'm sure I never 'memorized' all those blackboard parsing exercises; that's just manna for compulsive taxonomists. I must just remember the resultant engrams. I think !? Then too, if one recalls Subject/Object .. that correlates with the transitive or intransitive case of [the meaning of is.] But not so simply, with only one to Be extant. Espa\ufffdol is saner, with ser and estar to obviate most vagaries of Being.. stuff Here's a test of your eclectic amassing of English weirdage of the Ages - It is I, Digby O'Dell the {friendly} undertaker [1] -VS- It's me. I think there's no punctilious way to parse these, without separate verb-forms. I can ~take It's me, which is by now std. usage, I wot - but prefer, It is I. If you reverse the order, as one should be able to to do, in intransitive case: It is me <-> Me is it. -VS- It is I <-> I is it, though {sigh} you'd really say, I am it/I am that (-person) {ugh} Easier, when queried about a definite, Are you he? -- clearly you reply, I am he (not him) etc. Too many words! about a couple simple idioms. You're really not 'acting upon' the putative object here, ergo I aver that Engl. would be much saner with ser/estar. We. must. revise back to... beyond Beowulf. er, Maybe 'scan' Is the better working version. :-\ufffd [link\|http://www.old-time.com/bytes/index.html\| [1]] 2/3 way down list - and you can Hear them. Ghosts... Rilly too early for you, '40s radio - but then again.. The Shadow Knows BTW - that exact phrase in "" got 3 Google hits! (I have managed [1], a few times)
Post #275,262 by Another Scott 12/9/06 8:16:28 AM Reply	"Myself" seems to be replacing "me" and "I" these days. I cringe most times that I hear people saying "myself", because it seems wrong to my ears in almost all cases. But it seems to be working its way into popular American English as a single word to replace "me/I/" in cases where people have forgotten or never learned the traditional rules. E.g. Laura and I are going to the ethnic market to pick up some octopus, pig tongues, lamb lungs, and dripping fungus to make pot of stew. Do you want to come along? There's almost nothing better than home-made stew. Mmmm Good! Who's coming along with Laura and me? becomes *Laura and myself ... Who's coming along with Laura and myself?* </skin crawling> Cheers, Scott.
Post #275,268 by jbrabeck 12/9/06 10:41:27 AM Reply	You and Bio are doing what? :) A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. (Herm Albright)
Post #275,274 by Another Scott 12/9/06 11:07:43 AM Reply	No, it doesn't involve jazz hands.
Post #275,312 by Ashton 12/9/06 9:28:00 PM Reply	Well.. 'ter' never caught on for 'him-or-her' - though the idea was intensely logic-al. May the same fate await the 'myself'marker. Proper usage: ? I (when myself) probably wouldn't have mistaken that blasting cap for a foil-wrapped caramel, you see. Alas, the President, clearly hurrying to a peace march, Decided to bite down before..

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