<p>You don’t have to use whom where it is the correct choice. Nor do you have to wipe the drool off your chin. Or wear clean clothes. Or show manners. Or go to college. The ignorance of the people around you will not excuse your choices.</p>
<p>^^^There is no reason for whom to still exist?</p>
<p>^^^ Because in all situations where the word whom is used, you can substitute who with no loss of clarity or meaning, except when you are discussion grammar like we are here. And most people (English professors excepted) either don’t care or prefer it that way.</p>
<p>^ I agree with his point. Whom is a dying term, imo.</p>
<p>Thank you for this thread!</p>
<p>I always feel awkward not using “whom” when I know I should, but then I feel even more awkward when I do. Even my incredibly intelligent English teacher doesn’t use it in colloquial conversation.</p>
<p>Even your English teacher might say, “There’s four papers.” That doesn’t make it right. And, technically, it’s, “The person WHOM I have the most faith in.” Because the separation of the “in” - it’s move to the back of the sentence- doesn’t eliminate it or its reference. If you think good grammar is “pretentious,” go ahead. Most of the people around you won’t know the difference. But, by those standards, much of achievement can be made to look “pretentious” by anyone living a different lifestyle.</p>
<p>^ The problem is that most achievement has some value besides just being achievement.</p>
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<p>I disagree because of the mere fact that “whom” is formally correct as the objectively inflected form of “who.” We could, for example, stop using the objective-cased “him” and suffer “no loss of clarity or meaning.” But it does make communication awkward when people go around saying things like “I gave he my paper.”</p>
<p>^ The vast majority of people recognize the him/he distinction, so it would be awkward to mix them. On the other hand, if you replace “whom” with “who” few people will notice and even fewer will care.</p>
<p>If you’re saying somthing where the substitute is noticeable, then what you are saying probably sounds awkward regardless of which word you use.</p>
<p>why use words like excellent and awful when you could say doubleplusgood or plusungood?</p>
<p>Why use ‘friend’ when you could use ‘droog’?
Now I think I’m getting my constructed languages mixed up :/</p>
<p>What is the correct pronounciation of pronounciation? I find not using “whom” sounds kind of awkward sometimes so I generally use it. Plus, I learnt my grammer from Indian grammer books which haven’t been updated since the British Raj so “whom” was used quite commonly in those.</p>
<p>um, i use whom… and drink tea with milk…</p>
<p>good grammar is never pretentious. correcting other people’s grammar is, however [i learned that the hard way].</p>