Timeline for Are these two consecutive relative clauses that modify the same noun phrase?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 22, 2014 at 1:15 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | See this NGgram. Yes, object who he knew to was shooting up in printed sources into the 90s - and peaked at a bit above 4% of whom. | |
| Aug 22, 2014 at 1:12 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @Araucaria I'd be surprised; more likely, they avoid old-fashioned locutions like whom she did not know to be. ... The fact is, who/whom doesn't come up much in academic prose (except perhaps among historians), so it's probably a waste of time for even our FFLs with academic ambitions to pay much attention to it - particularly since if they do get to publish anything the publisher will silently adjust it to house style. | |
| Aug 22, 2014 at 0:42 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | I don't think I find them avoiding it, but I know I find them ignoring it! | |
| Aug 22, 2014 at 0:34 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | ... But the ones who do so are mostly pretty damn good writers, and they are very well aware that their tweaks are more effective for being embedded in prose of academically impeccable formality, however buccalingually motivated. I don't think you'll find them avoiding an academic use which has a genuine advantage in forestalling ambiguity. | |
| Aug 22, 2014 at 0:29 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @Araucaria Of course a DO/IO relative can be omitted in any register; but if you use WHO to represent the object of a verb or pronoun it takes the objective form in formal registers. That's why the use with the objective form is labeled 'Grammatically Correct' and the use with the nominative form is labeled 'Conversational Use'. To be sure, academic language in the humanities has become greatly colloquialized in the past couple of generations, and a lot of folks in your discipline in paticular are fond of tweaking the sensibilities of the Strunkists. ... | |
| Aug 21, 2014 at 23:59 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | But it doesn't say 'whom' must be used in formal writing. It just says: 2) In American English, the word "whom" is not used very often. "Whom" is more formal than "who" and is very often omitted while speaking: Sorry about the bold. Was difficult with just italics :) | |
| Aug 21, 2014 at 20:31 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @Araucaria I don't have any style guides, and my wife has just taken her MLA Style Manual off to grad school. But the Purdue OWL is pretty much the online standard for academic English these days; note its distinction between 'Grammatically Correct' and 'Conversational Use'. | |
| Aug 21, 2014 at 20:03 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | I really don't think that's true - although I'm willing to be disproved. Do you know of an academic journal, for instance, where who is barred from being an object, either in practice or in their style guide? Like I say, I am willing to be disproved ... [if a person can be disproved, that is :) ] | |
| Aug 21, 2014 at 20:01 | comment | added | StoneyB on hiatus | @Araucaria In formal registers it must be realized with whom. In colloquial registers who may freely replace whom (but the reverse is not true). | |
| Aug 21, 2014 at 19:54 | comment | added | Araucaria - Not here any more. | +1 But you mean might be, or could be realised with whom (as opposed to who), right? | |
| Aug 20, 2014 at 13:11 | vote | accept | Listenever | ||
| Aug 20, 2014 at 21:55 | |||||
| Aug 20, 2014 at 12:10 | history | answered | StoneyB on hiatus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |