ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

though I guess if you're doing ESL teaching it might be simpler to just cut to what doesn't sound awkward in conversation

Ah. That was redundant. (xpost)

though I guess if you're doing ESL teaching it might be simpler to just cut to what doesn't sound awkward in conversation

Obviously. If someone is trying to learn a language you equip them to deal with the language they will actually encounter in the real world, rather than what someone feels they ought to encounter.

then you fancy such women as carey mulligan. but any minute now the dude who wrote that style is going to come crashing through the doors shouting about Tescos, so I'm going to leave this one

yeah I had to reread the thread before I realized you were teaching English as second language

xpost

When you're teaching English (as an SL) you find a lot of students use whom ALL the time, cos they've learnt from books or non-native teachers or whatever, so yes, the challenge is to make them sound a little more natural, but be aware of it as a marker of formality.

But there is the point about when exactly we give it up.

"You" also has an object form (thee) and a subject form (thou), which obvioulsy fell out of use. When does the disjunct between used language and the rules get big enough to change the rules?

I reckon pretty soon with "whom", in that, as Jamie and I have been saying, it's already taught as an optional form in ESL textbooks.

obvioulsy !

Personally I choose to never use the word 'whom' because I don't want to sound like an ageing, posh Oxbridge Don.

But there is the point about when exactly we give it up.

"You" also has an object form (thee) and a subject form (thou), which obvioulsy fell out of use. When does the disjunct between used language and the rules get big enough to change the rules?

I reckon pretty soon with "whom", in that, as Jamie and I have been saying, it's already taught as an optional form in ESL textbooks.

Anyone reading that who doesn't know that my name is also Jamie will think you are talking to yourself.

There are various aspects of the language which are in the process of changing. The question is to what extent the change has been adopted: what proportion of the population use the new form rather than the old form (or if people use both forms, how often do they prefer the new to the old)? 'Posh'/'educated' English tends to be more formal and conservative, as does written English, so sometimes forms can linger for decades there (such as our old friend 'whom') that have virtually disappeared from everyday speech.

The grammar books used for teaching English are obviously going to side more with descriptivists because communication is the goal. House style guides are obviously going to be far more prescriptivist (but even they would have to update their rules eventually). The grammar books for teaching English usually give both alternatives (the old and the new). Where the change has been largely adopted then there is usually a note saying that old form is considered very formal and uncommon. Where the change is less complete then there is usually a note saying that the new form is considered informal and not used in 'careful speech'.

I quite like the idea of international readers thinking we're idiots. It facilitates the mounting of a surprise attack.

"You" also has an object form (thee) and a subject form (thou), which obvioulsy fell out of use.

"thee" and "thou" were informal singular second-person, analogous to tu/ti in Spanish, du in German, etc. "Ye" was the object form of "you."

And yeah I don't consider people who say "whom" to be overbearingly posh like the Britishers apparently do.

oh wait this is the thread where you can't use "like" in place of "as"

British writers (for Americans have a less feisty attitude toward these rules) should be aware that any international readers they may have do not interpret their supposedly naturalistic style as favorably as their countrymen do.

It's not necessarily the case that British writers (or editors) are more carefree about breaking/changing rules than Americans, it might just be that this whole 'who'/'whom' thing is another difference between British English and American English.

xpost

Hmm, that's not what wikipedia says (as I checked), but the point stands in any case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_%28pronoun%29

I also think I just used a word (disjunct) that not only sounds pompous, but also doesn't exist!

foiled again by wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thou

Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root. In imitation of continental practice, thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity, or even disrespect while another pronoun, you, the oblique/objective form of ye, was used for formal circumstances (see T-V distinction).

I still got ye/you mixed up though ;_;

Surely there's another thread for arguing about middle-english pronoun forms?

I have to go. It's been fun. Death to all prescriptivists! Sub-editors for a living language unite etc.

Language moves on, but I don't think we've got to the point where use of who/whom is totally optional. I'd say spoken English it's "who" these days, but for written English there are plenty of cases where "who" simply sounds wrong. You wouldn't want to write a legal document using "who" instead of "whom", would you?

As for that/which, I have a feeling there's a UK/US divide here - in the UK you can use either for a defining clause, but in the US you have to use "that".

But legal English is full of all kinds of archaic terms that are never used anywhere else

nb I'm no prescriptivist

Does a descriptivist sub-editor even have to show up for work?

Nice.

Descriptivism and prescriptivism are on a ... continuum. When I am feeling more descriptivist than usual, I get to go home early.

I infer from the above that I must be a hardcore descriptivist

When I'm at my most descriptivist the other sub editors feed me biscuits until it goes away

I mean geez, what's we're talking about here has nothing to do with prescriptivism or descriptivism -- it just has to do with how rigorous or indulgent your editing is, and how formal or conversational the tone of your publication is. Editing is, by definition, an act of prescription. Changing stuff to sound like common speech because "whom" sounds "too poncey" is every bit as prescriptive as the other way around, except at least the other way around you can't be a huge hypocrite and act like you're striking some grand blow against language snobs.

Re the well/good situation, I found this on the internets.

It says stuff like:

'Realize that when you respond "I'm good" to the question "How are you?" you are telling the person that you are beneficial, kind, favorable or perhaps virtuous (depending on how the listener interprets your answer).'

But, yuh, I'm not necessarily agreeing with it....

...but it does back up my drunken argument.

Changing stuff to sound like common speech because "whom" sounds "too poncey" is every bit as prescriptive as the other way around, except at least the other way around you can't be a huge hypocrite and act like you're striking some grand blow against language snobs.

Nobody was saying you should do that, anyway. I said that you could use 'who' or 'that' as relative pronouns in certain cases (see waaaaaay upthread now) and somebody claimed that 'who' was wrong and needed to be changed to 'whom' because that was TEH RULE. The whole debate was about the fact that this 'rule' is wrong, and both 'who' and 'whom' are acceptable, but that you would only expect to encounter the latter in formal, written language. Nobody was suggesting that you should change formal documents to sound like common speech, we were fighting against the idea that you should change common speech to sound like formal documents because some house style guide says it's the rule.

I think maybe some of the misunderstanding results from the fact that this thread is entitled "ATTN: Copyeditors," and the vast majority of what it's about is written English.

Ok.

This is making my brain hurt:

bored of
bored with
bored by

I've always used all three of these interchangeably. Am I wrong in doing this? Someone's just told me "bored of" is not correct English.

Argh. I need a decent reason for any assertion!

"bored with" is the one preferred by the purists. the other two are ok in informal writing.

ok, i've now done some of my own homework and discovered this:

"The normal constructions for bored are bored by and bored with. More recently, bored of has emerged (probably by analogy with other words, such as tired of), but this construction, though common in informal English, is not yet considered acceptable in standard English." (Oxford dictionary of English 2003)

So it seems bored of, although technically incorrect, is becoming acceptable purely through frequency of usage. Woo...

So it seems bored of, although technically incorrect, is becoming acceptable purely through frequency of usage. Woo...

How else would it become acceptable?

well, some constructions never become "officially" acceptable despite widespread usage: "I could of done it", for example, or "I'm going to try and come later". But I've never seen "bored of" in any light other than an acceptable one. Maybe that's just me.

On a similar note, 'obsessed with' or 'obsessed by'?
I hate 'obsessed by' but don't know why as I can't see any particular reason for it to be wrong.

Oh, also can you say 'this is the reason why....' or should it be 'reason for (something happening)' or 'reason that (something happened)'?
Again I don't like 'this is the reason why...' but not sure why...

i'm so, so glad i was too busy to be reading ILX while that whole debate above was going on. especially as, on friday night, i nearly started a pub fight about the use of "whom". no, really.

When I'm at my most descriptivist the other sub editors feed me biscuits until it goes away

see if we do end up facing each other across some kind of merged desk? that sentence will be re-cast, and "feed me biscuits" will be replaced by (or is it "with"?) "hit me with bats".

the Guardian style guide says it's "All mouth and trousers", not "all mouth and no trousers". Surely not??

I've noticed the Guardian does that but I don't know the answer.

blimey... there's a whole blog devoted to keeping the "all mouth and trousers" expression. Apparently it's a Northern expression that's been corrupted by bungling Southerners into "all mouth and no trousers". Well I'll be!

It's "all mouth and trousers" i.e. all front - it's what's in yer trousers that counts. I think people started to conflate that phrase with things like "all bark and no bite" hence the corruption but it just turns it into a nonsense phrase IMO.

(oops the slowest typing ever made an x-poster outta me)

I feel like wading back into the who/whom debate, but I'm rather busy, so I'll just post this, from the Guardian style guide:

Use of "whom" has all but disappeared from spoken English, and seems to be going the same way in most forms of written English too. If you are not sure, it is much better to use "who" when "whom" would traditionally have been required than to use "whom" incorrectly for "who", which will make you look not just wrong but wrong and pompous.

My argument is not that "whom" should never be used in any context, but that it is not "wrong" in any meaningful sense to use "who" instead. It's just a marker of formality and we should recognise it as such. "Could of", in contrast, is actually wrong, as CharlieNo4 says above.

And say that all prescriptivists are actually deluded descriptivists, since they make their pronouncements based on a version of the language as it is spoken/written. It's just that descriptivists actually spend vast amounts of time, money, computer analysis and so on to find out statistically what is actually said or written in a variety of contexts, whereas prescriptivists make it up. Laters ; )

It's "all mouth and trousers" i.e. all front - it's what's in yer trousers that counts. I think people started to conflate that phrase with things like "all bark and no bite" hence the corruption but it just turns it into a nonsense phrase IMO.

(oops the slowest typing ever made an x-poster outta me)

-- NickB, Wednesday, 27 June 2007 14:40 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Depends whether you think of the "trousers" bit to connote embarassment or denote that the subject has no balls.

The monstrosity below illustrates why “whom” may come in handy on occasion:

A beaut: Game shows, the story said, are “popular only with older viewers, who advertisers are least interested in reaching.” Which is to say, least interested in reaching they.

http://cjrarchives.org/tools/lc/who.asp

No, it doesn't. It's only a "monstrosity" if you regard 'whom' as the only possible form of 'who' when it's the object of a verb, but (as this thread has gone into great detail) hardly anyone nowadays thinks you have to use 'who' instead of 'whom' in informal speech and lots of people consider both 'who' and 'whom' to be acceptable in writing, with the only difference being the level of formality that it signifies.

It would only "come in handy" if the sentence that you've quoted was either impossible to understand (which it isn't) or hideously inelegant (which is a matter of opinion, but to my eyes "...whom advertisers are..." looks far odder).

but to my eyes "...whom advertisers are..." looks far odder

whoa really? I think that this is one of the few cases in which the use of "who" actually offends my eyes/ears. Not so much because of its grammatical function, but because of how it sounds to have the "who" preceding a vowel without the "m" stepping in between, like an a/an situation. I know this is completely not how who/whom works, but "who advertisers are.." really hurt my brain unexpectedly, and I think that's the irrational reasoning behind it.

to who it may concern

I'm becoming more and more convinced that this is just a difference between British and American English. (xpost)

Nabisco - I think everyone agreed that after a preposition you would have to use 'whom', but that most of the time you can easily avoid that word order (one of the exceptions being fixed expressions like that).