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posted by mattie_p on Wednesday February 19 2014, @01:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-really-do-it dept.

By now, you have had the chance to read the updates of both NCommander and Barrabas. Nonetheless, you may still be wondering quite a few things about the site and its staff. Here is your chance to ask us anything. These questions can be general in nature, in which case the staff will select a spokesperson to answer it, or it may be specific to an individual. If the question is for an individual, please ensure you identify that person specifically enough.

We will select the best questions from the thread and provide answers to the community. These questions may not be the highest rated, although we will probably use those first.

In keeping with tradition, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post.

 
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by johaquila on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:24PM

    by johaquila (867) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:24PM (#2694)

    Actually, no, it's fine as it is and should not be changed. As a native speaker of a language in which the dative and accusative (of which "whom" is one of very few remnants still existing in English) still exist, I am acutely aware of what is going on with "whom". There was a time when every native speaker of English used who/whom as naturally as they are still using he/him. At that time nobody would have thought of using "whomever" in the way that you are proposing. In that sentence, "who[m]ever" functions as a relative pronoun. It is an object in the surrounding sentence ("The following comments are owned by ..."), and simultaneously the subject of the relative clause ("Whoever posted them"). Turns out that in Germanic languages the latter function has always taken precedence. It is a recent effect of language change that English speakers have become so unsure about who vs. whom that they even consider doing it the other way.

    That said, the number of people who are doing it in a way that would have been clearly wrong a hundred years ago is close to critical mass now. Linguists will soon unequivocally consider it correct to use "whomever" in the way you are proposing. But this is not the case yet.

    If you don't believe me, consider this. The strangeness of a part of speech being in nominative case in one respect and in accusative/dative case in another has long been felt. That's why there is an alternative construction: "The following comments are owned by him who posted them." "Him" consumes the dative/accusative, leaving the relative pronoun "who" in the nominative case, as it should be for its clause. Presumably this is the original construction, which was later shortened by dropping "him". This is why the case from the relative clause wins.

    Sometimes the effect is the other way round:

    "Whomever they are trying to kill, will have a hard time." Here the accusative case comes from the relative clause ("Whomever they are trying to kill"), and wins against the nominative case in which the pronoun (or clause) stands in relation to the main clause ("... will have a hard time").

    Linguists have written a lot about this, especially on the web. For one nice casual treatment, see http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2900 [upenn.edu]

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by bucc5062 on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:53PM

    by bucc5062 (699) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @02:53PM (#2734)

    see, this is why I love reading the comments (and why the other site is failing. Whomever remains at the aqua site will be less for the experience. Yes?

    --
    The more things change, the more they look the same
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 19 2014, @03:17PM (#2747)

      Magic 8 ball says yes!

  • (Score: 1) by frojack on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:01PM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @07:01PM (#2948)

    I like it. An instructive and informative Grammar Nazi! Correction done without malice.

    --
    Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
  • (Score: 1) by unitron on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:52PM

    by unitron (70) on Wednesday February 19 2014, @11:52PM (#3141) Journal

    "The following comments are owned by *he* who posted them." is the version that doesn't make my brain hurt.

    Most "who/whom" usage questions can be solved by converting to "they/them" and seeing which sounds right to the mind's ear.

    --
    something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
    • (Score: 1) by TheSage on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:42AM

      by TheSage (133) on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:42AM (#3206)

      "The following comments are owned by *he* who posted them." is the version that doesn't make my brain hurt.

      My wife will hunt you down and explain gender neutral language to you.

      May $DEITY have mercy on your soul.

      • (Score: 1) by unitron on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:55AM

        by unitron (70) on Thursday February 20 2014, @01:55AM (#3211) Journal

        I would be equally happy with "she who posted them" instead of "her", since it's just an alternate as a way to illustrate when to use "who" and when to use "whom", both of which, last I checked, are not gender specific.

        So my problem wasn't with "he" versus "she" but "he" versus "him".

        --
        something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
    • (Score: 1) by johaquila on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:04AM

      by johaquila (867) on Thursday February 20 2014, @11:04AM (#3475)

      Unfortunately your post proves that these usage questions can no longer be solved this way by most native speakers because they have started getting even these simple things wrong. The correct (though of course sexist) version of your sentence is (currently) still the following: "The following comments are owned by *him* who posted them."

      For further illustration, a very classical example with a nice workaround for the problem:

      "*He* that is without sin among you, let *him* first cast a stone at her".

      The correct short version of this has always been:

      "Let *him* who is without sin cast the first stone at her." (60 Google hits in 19th century books)

      But more and more speakers are preferring a new, formerly (and arguably still) ungrammatical version:

      "Let *he* who is without sin cast the first stone at her." (8 Google hits in 19th century books)

      This new variant already has 50% more Google hits than the old one. There are even reports of copy editors who have already started 'correcting' the correct version into the new one: http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/let-her -who-is-without-error/ [wordpress.com]

      This is just normal language change. What used to be wrong becomes right, what used to be right sounds antiquated or even ungrammatical to more and more people, and before you know it we are yet another little step removed from the language of Chaucer.