a lot of the literariness of the passe simple etc. comes out of the fact that they've fallen out of use in spoken french - I guess this is a good parallel with 'whom' - sounds froofy and literary only because it's falling out of use.
I'd argue that this is one of the reasons why 'for whom the bell tolls' sounds good to nabisco's ear - and I'd also guess that, even though it's a good title either way - back when ernie wrote it, the title didn't have the effect that it does today
so, I mean, by this argument we should allow lots of things to fall out of use and expand our toolbox of literary-sounding english
― iatee, Wednesday, 11 March 2009 04:35 (fifteen years ago) link