Bloomberg and the Atlantic should feel very proud (via via):
Good article. But attention WaPo headline writer: “Whom” is not the formal version of “Who”. https://t.co/GFMwZIGNAk
— (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) July 9, 2016
@ehaglund Adding “ever” to the end does not change this; if you wouldn’t use “Whom”, you should not use “whomever"
— (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) July 9, 2016
@sonyaellenmann @ehaglund It’s grammatically correct, but really archaic and weird.
— (((Megan McArdle))) (@asymmetricinfo) July 9, 2016
Major Major Major Major
To me this just looks like a human being’s Twitter feed.
Wag
McMegan left the Atlanic years ago.
msb
So correct usage “looks archaic and weird”. Right.
Ian
Why does Mcbargle go by the name asymetricinfo? Why would you be proud of having skewed data?
MattF
Now, don’t tell me that the post title is a subtle reference to a song. I won’t believe it.
Brachiator
So, let’s see. It’s grammaticality correct and McMegan is stupid. Just another day.
She will be stubbornly wrong about something else tomorrow.
Pogonip
” I am the way, the truth, and the life, and whomsoever believes in me shall never die.”
McArgle: “‘Whomsoever’? Crucify him!”
The Red Pen
Grammatically correct, but collectively nonsense.
pat
First of all, “Whomever you already disliked” is not a complete sentence. It refers back to “Who is to blame.”
That’s all I got….
Major Major Major Major
@msb: But it is both archaic and weird. Weird as in unusual to the point of turning her head (which is itself a modern usage of the term–there’s nothing paranormal going on here), and archaic as in archaic. Just because it’s “correct” doesn’t make it neither archaic nor weird.
@Pogonip: Yeah, the KJB isn’t archaic or weird-sounding at all.
Look, I get that we’re trying to point and laugh, but if this is her greatest sin lately, I mean, come on.
David Fud
@Ian: It seems likely to me that she is implying that she has a lot of info and everyone else not much, sort of like the asymetric warfare conducted by “terrorists” against occupying armies or by the US army against a 3rd world army (i.e., vs. Saddam’s Iraqi army) where force is replaced with info.
She apparently has the info and we don’t. Or, she means that we all have the info and she has the power, but is ignorant. Not exactly an apt use of the idea of asymmetry.
MomSense
As with all things McArdle, best taken with a grain of pink Himalayan salt.
sigaba
@David Fud: it’s just a term from economics, describing two actors one of WHOM has more information than the other. When economic actors have the same information, it’s supposed to result in a Pareto optimal outcome.
Major Major Major Major
@David Fud: Asymmetric information is a concept in economics. It’s when one party to a transaction knows more. I think it used to be the name of her blog?
It’s from the school of thought that naming your blog after something economics-y sounding makes you cool. Like say ‘Zero Hedge’.
She used to blog as “Jane Galt”.
Brachiator
@David Fud:
Or she knows a lot of nothing.
boatboy_srq
I bet her doesn’t understand how to use subject/object forms of pronouns, either.
/snark
Jim, Foolish Literalist
McMegan is is going to retire from punditing and open a gastropub featuring only saltine crackers flavored with weird and archaic salts.
sigaba
@Major Major Major Major: It’s not archaic in the slightest. English pronouns have an accusative and nominative case
raven
Nerd fight!!!!
Major Major Major Major
@sigaba: For now. But they aren’t particularly useful. They’ll go away. We used to have thirteen kinds of inflected verb, you know. Now we’re down to one, plus archaic exceptions like run/ran. Things change.
Hope that information has holpen you.
sigaba
@Major Major Major Major: they do. But saying something will change tomorrow, is not the same as saying it is incorrect today.
germy
LGM provided a Megan translation:
sigaba
Also say what you will, but English verb formation remains a dumpster fire.
nonynony
@Major Major Major Major:
If you’re going to be a prescriptivist asshole to the point that you’re calling out professional headline writers on your Twitter feed then you better goddamn be correct about your prescriptivism.
McArdle is the worst kind of prescriptivist. She thinks she knows all of the rules about how grammar should work, calls people out in public about them, doesn’t bother to check her facts and is almost always wrong when she does it.
I have little tolerance for prescriptivist public shaming anyway – but if you’re going to do it you better goddamn be right when you do it.
Major Major Major Major
@sigaba: Ah, but you’ve moved the goalposts back to where they were before she moved them in the first place. You and I were discussing ‘archaic/weird’, not ‘correct’.
See how easy that mistake is to make?
Like I said, this just reads like the a Twitter exchange between human beings. She’s not a language blogger, cut her some (a little) slack.
Brachiator
This just in from the Guardian and other UK news sources.
The fallout from the BREXIT vote keeps knocking ’em down.
Another Holocene Human
Saw this the other day at LGM and still perplexed as to why McMeghan even started this fight.
The “m” in whom is mostly being lost due to phonetic reasons, not grammar reasons (although, yes, confusion of nominative and accusative seems quite common with poorly educated suburban folks so … we’re getting there), so why pick a fight with “whomever” where that elided “m” will drop right back in, sort of like a shield and “an” honor, with the elided “n”.
Oh, right, because know it all Jane Galt doesn’t even realize that.
MattF
@Brachiator: It’s like musical chairs– and the music has stopped.
Another Holocene Human
@Brachiator: That flap is fascinating from over here. Shades of that shit tornado Joss Whedon kicked up when he implied that a woman who’s been sterilized is a monster. #lolwhedon.
Major Major Major Major
@nonynony: I’ll agree that this exchange makes her look like an asshole and possibly a high school student who’s in Latin (or perhaps Debate) Club but isn’t very good at it.
MrSnrub
I had to look up the rules for Who/Whom, which I’ve never really known, and found this.
The Oatmeal: Who vs Whom
Good stuff.
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: Wait, she named her blog assymetric information and then she provided a case study by playing Correcty Fairy in public?
Another Holocene Human
@Wag: Left it a smoking ruin moldering in the ashes of its previous reputation, you mean?
gogol's wife
@Brachiator:
Sorry, McArdle is right. It’s the subject of a verb, not the object of “dislike.”
Another Holocene Human
@MrSnrub: who/whom is just they/them, but harder to pronounce, so it turns into who/who/whom depending on what words are gently cradling that funky lip pursing action.
gogol's wife
The pronoun is standing in for “Who’s to blame?” So it should be “Whoever,” not “whomever.”
The biggest grammatical problem I see in current media is using “whom” where it should be “who.” Usually it’s when a parenthetical is involved. “Al Gore is the man whom many think should have been president in 2000.” Wrong.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: Heh indeedy.
p.a.
no No NO. whomsoever
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: I thought Sully did that, she was just along for the ride.
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
Which is not to say it would be an elegant construction even if “whomever” were replaced by “whoever.”
The great R. L. Trask says, best to just use “who” if you don’t know the difference.
Another Holocene Human
On the Oatmeal, “to whom”, “with whom” are iambs. So they fit a certain rhythm in English that is pleasing. The whom without a particle antecedent is trochaic. (Think Hiawatha.) All that stress put on the initial “whom” is just a pain in the ass to say so we turn it into a stressed “who”. Think about how annoying it is just to pronounce “Whom did you call in here?” versus “Who did you call in here?” Hoooooom. Ugh. Make it stop.
Another Holocene Human
@gogol’s wife: “to who” “with who” is not iambic, more of a strophee, which is annoying to say, which is why that M sound has hung around while getting dropped from the naked object case who/whom.
Doug!
@nonynony:
Yes, exactly.
Another Holocene Human
Betcha didn’t realize how deep this who/whom conspiracy goes. At least it’s not one of those schoolmarm created betismes like “Your gift was so meaningful to Christopher and I.” RAGE
Mothra
After last week a grammar diversion is great.
I felt so hopeless and frustrated last night. You forget how many clueless people you know until you see “learn to comply with the police” memes show up in your Facebook feed. CASTILE COMPLIED. That’s what BLM is trying to tell you! Compliance does not fix the problem!
Another Holocene Human
Using an object case like “me” in the subject has some precedent in the French language, which did influence English at various times. French uses “moi” rather than “je” when not immediately followed by a verb, almost exactly like colloquial English. Huh, I wonder where that came from, what an absolutely astounding coincidence. Who gives a fig that it’s “bad” Latin?
Another Holocene Human
@Mothra: Facebook sux.
schrodinger's cat
Heh DougJ, I am in your neck of the woods right now!
Major Major Major Major
@Mothra: If black people’s bodies would just comply with the bullets and let them in so they didn’t have to use force, there would be a lot less damage.
jeffreyw
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Her pantry will stock these.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
I flipped over to regular radio this morning, first time in a long time, just to listen to Bob and Tom.
I heard a commercial – first time ever – inviting high school graduates who are interested in college but not the expense to come to the IBEW hall to see about entering the program. The ad I heard highlighted $15 an hour opening pay and advancing to $30 an hour pay with benefits and retirement.
I thought it was awesome – shows the benefits of membership in a union of people working in skilled trades. We need a lot more of this!
p.a.
Safire, grammar nazi, like Scalia, nazi nazi, still dead. Imposing Latin language nomenclature on English, possible the most promiscuous language there is (Amerenglish at least), is another evil result of DWM dominance.
sigaba
@gogol’s wife: “Whomever” is the direct object, “You” is the subject.
@germy: McArdle has a lot of these little episodes where she’ll try to correct someone, or quote some fact, then be absolutely wrong on the facts, and then come back with some variation of the underlying principle is right. The only thing I can come up with is she just doesn’t take her writing very seriously. That she would prefer her underlying principle to evidence is of course understandable, libertarians despise evidence and believe economics is just a branch of ethics.
Major Major Major Major
@p.a.: German has an accusative. This isn’t a Latin issue.
p.a.
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: I remember in the ’60’s the AFL-CIO had a Sunday morning news & information show on one of the big 3 (IIRC, or maybe it was shown locally at whatever station would take the money). Right before/after the Lutherans’ Davey and Goliath.
Major Major Major Major
@p.a.: German has an accusative, and a dative and genitive too. Not a Latin issue.
gogol's wife
Probably wr@sigaba:
The headline asks “Who’s to blame for Dallas?” To answer the question, you are replacing the subject of that clause, “who is to blame” — the answer is “whoever,” serving as the stand-in for the subject of “is.”
BC in Illinois
@Pogonip:
I’m sure you were joking, but archaic correctness leads to point out that my 1611 King James Version has the translation:
(Just roll with the v’s and the u’s.)
That was John 14:6. You combined it with John 11:25-26:
[For going archaic, nothing beats the first edition 1611 King James Translation with the original spelling.]
The point is, for the 1611 translation committee, “whosoever” was fine in the nominative. In the accusative (as Judas said):
Do with it as thou willst
gogol's wife
@Another Holocene Human:
You’re probably right that “whom” has survived for reasons of euphony. I’m ready to see it go, given how often it’s used inappropriately.
gogol's wife
@BC in Illinois:
The problem with the stupid headline is that the whole thing is ungrammatical. It should be something like, “Who’s to blame for Dallas? Whoever’s not your friend” or something like that, to avoid switching horses in the middle of the stream. The parallelism is bad.
Brachiator
@gogol’s wife:
McArdle is right, even though she admitted that she was wrong? And shifted the argument to what was weird and archaic?
Nope, not buying it.
gogol's wife
@Brachiator:
She got confused by the pushback. She was right to start with. See my comments #61, 64.
Mike J
Who’s on first, and also to blame for Dallas.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill: Yes, definitely. Where in the country is IBEW running this ad because my local IBEW needs to do this, everyone agrees, but they haven’t done anything but talk so far.
sigaba
@gogol’s wife: Right and if it was written that way it would be correct. But he used a verb in the second sentence, so You is the subject.
Sorry I have a degree in Russian so whenever anyone says anything it’s almost like I can taste the noun cases. Russian has six cases, but it’s still pretty under control compared to Finnish.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: She managed to be wrong about being wrong?
gogol's wife
@sigaba:
See comment #64. The parallelism of the clauses should have been preserved, but at any rate, I would say that the primary function of the second pronoun is to stand in for “who” in the initial clause, as the subject of “is to blame.”
I’m fluent in Russian too. Not relevant.
Another Holocene Human
@gogol’s wife: I think she was confused before the pushback or she could have articulated that. She heard something “off” but fingered the wrong problem.
But with “math is hard” Meghan, expecting incisive, logical thinking is a bridge too far. Now, let me tell you about that urban Negro….
Rommie
@David Fud: “She apparently has the info and we don’t”
That’s the Republican belief system in a nutshell. I really, really do try to keep an open mind, but all too often I get Anthrax and Tire Rims from across the fence. I’m watching it happen to a friend, who I *know* is not the Common Clay of the Midwest, but is feasting on a A+TR diet on his FB feed because of Dallas. SMH
As far as the OP – Yes, if you are going to declare yourself the arbiter of All Things Correct, don’t make an error lest you end up like Nomad in Star Trek. FAULTY!
gogol's wife
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes, she did. She should have stood her ground.
Another Holocene Human
@BC in Illinois: Hey, smarty pants, is it true that the Bible was deliberately translated into archaic-for-the-time English to make it seem weightier and more impressive/intimidating?
I heard this claimed on British TV, just wondering if this is a consensus view.
Major Major Major Major
@sigaba: Ooh, somebody brought a Finno-Ugric to an Indo-European fight. Everybody duck!
gogol's wife
@Another Holocene Human:
Yeah, I find it weird to be defending Megan. But “who/whom” is a pet peeve of mine. I’m much happier to see “to who” than to see “the man whom we think will be the next chairman.”
Another Holocene Human
@gogol’s wife: Pretty sure she did stand her (shaky) ground. She thought it sounded weird. She was confused as to why.
sigaba
@gogol’s wife:
So there aren’t two clauses here. There are two sentences, each bearing one clause. They can’t preserve the parallelism because there is none: one sentence is SVO, with a present-tense to infinitive verb form, and the second is OSV, with the verb in second-person past.
Brachiator
@srv:
It’s their job not to be thrilled.
And Sullivan probably feels as though happy days are here again.
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I hear her blender makes a flawless bechamel. flawless.
Another Holocene Human
@gogol’s wife: That seems to be a sentence where the thought and the grammar are all mixed up because “the man” is clearly the “object” of our thoughts, so it’s weird to recast him as the subject just because it’s some sort of (dependent? subordinate?) clause. That confusion would exist even if the pronoun were different.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: If so, that would give ammunition to the “archaic and weird” crowd.
Gin & Tonic
@p.a.: Safire was at least interesting, as opposed to Megan.
Brachiator
@Another Holocene Human:
Yes, this is true. A good chunk of the King James version imports the text of the Tyndale Bible, from 1524-1530.
germy
@sigaba:
Is it a gentler form of gaslighting?
germy
For shame
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: A predicate nominative is nothing especially unusual.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Which, I suppose, is mathematically correct.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
germy
@Brachiator: Sullivan had a brief cameo in Batman V Superman. I believe he spoke in favor of Lex Luthor.
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator: The Tyndale was only 70-80 years old at the time. Taking that as “archaic” or “quaint” is a bit like reading Hemingway and Fitzgerald today and thinking they’re Middle English.
Brachiator
@Mike J:
You got a guy in left field?
Yeah. Whomever.
BC in Illinois
@gogol’s wife:
Yours is the best analysis in the thread.
“Who is to blame?” HE is. Nominative.
“Who do you blame?” HIM. Accusative.
The first sentence asks a question that should be answered in the nominative.
The second sentence answers with a construction that requires the accusative.
You could however (and here I would credit Rita Mae Brown) consider that the words “to blame” contain a hidden passive. That someone is “to blame” means that someone [me or you or someone else] actively blames someone.
So . . . “Who’s to blame?” “Him!”. . . meaning “I blame him.”
Or it could be . . . “Who’s to blame?” He is.” . . . meaning that “he is in the state of being to blame.
Sentence one takes one construction; sentence two takes the other.
You are correct. The parallelism is bad.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator:
different-church-lady
@Wag: That’s why they should feel proud.
gogol's wife
@Another Holocene Human:
No, the “we think” is parenthetical to the main sentence.
RSA
In my head, I combine the two parts into Whoever you already disliked is to blame for Dallas.
And while that sounds right to me, now I’m not even sure. Any grammar mavens (a phrase I always associate with William Safire) want to chip in on the correctness of my sentence?
Brachiator
@boatboy_srq:
According to some scholars, Tyndale “was writing at the beginning of the Early Modern English period.” Lot of change within a short span of time.
On the other hand, Tyndale introduced a number of new words into English.
jeffreyw
I’ll be happy when “whom” is dead and buried, but using “they” as a generic singular pronoun? Over my cooling corpse!
Amir Khalid
I’d consider both “whomever” and “whoever” acceptable.in the second sentence of the headline. I wouldn’t make a fuss about preferring one or the other. I think “whomever” is strictly the correct form, and that’s the word I’d choose in that sentence; but “whoever” is also well-established, in keeping wth the gradual fading of “whom” from the language in favour of “who”.
Major Major Major Major
@boatboy_srq: @Brachiator: Also keep in mind the written word was not a perfect representation of the language as used, back then.
different-church-lady
WHOM… THE HELL… CARES?
BC in Illinois
@Another Holocene Human:
It may be overstating it to say that they were deliberately archaizing. They already had a Tyndale Bible of the 1530s to use as a model, but they did their own work (stealing from Tyndale as they wished). At the time, archaizing would have been to kept the Latin Vulgate (and there are traces of that as well). But the verb forms we find archaic [I abide, thou abidest, he abideth] were just the verb forms of the day (see Mallory) but they were passing away.
For analogies, look at William Shakespeare’s contemporary English: “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” “Shall I compare thee . . . Thou art more lovely.” Thee and thou were not archaic forms; they were not special forms to address Divinity; they were singular forms to use for friends, lovers, and family. [ . . . or to address inferiors. When the translators addressed their Superior, King James, they called him “You.” ]
ETA: Or what Brachiator said. English was changing. They were themselves part of the change. Mallory to Tyndale to KJV / Shakespeare is a lot of change.
Botsplainer, Neoliberal Corporatist Shill
@Another Holocene Human:
It’s being run here in the People’s Democratic Soc!alist Kenyan Shariah Republic of Louisville. IBEW Local 369, as I recall. It was VERY well done, targeted at the perfect demographic.
jacy
@Major Major Major Major:
McMegan is someone to whom any kind of slack should never be cut.
The problem is telling someone that something is wrong because it is “archaic and weird” instead of actually being wrong is a hallmark of a bossy know-it-all who doesn’t bother to actually know it all. Or know much of anything, for that matter.
JanieM
@RSA:
It’s nicer to imagine myself as a grammar maven than as a grammar Nazi, so I’ll chip in.
I agree that your sentence sounds right, but I don’t think it is. It sounds right because “Whoever … is to blame” sounds right. If it were only that, “Whoever” would be the subject of “is” and would be the right form.
But in the sentence as you constructed it, the entire clause “Whomever you already disliked” is the subject of “is” – and who[m]ever needs to be in the case that’s the right one for its place within the clause.
This is interesting because contrary to the notion that “whom/ever” is disappearing from the language, which is what I would have expected and assumed (and seen) as of a few years ago, I’m now seeing “whom/ever” all over the place where it should be “who/ever.” I could find a couple of dozen examples right from BJ comments just within the last few months that I’ve been reading relatively faithfully. (And every time I have to sit on my hands and grit my teeth to keep from complaining. :-)) I know that comments are off the cuff and unedited, but I think that’s all the more telling: when people don’t stop to think about it, they use the more formal/correct-sounding form, and that’s “whom.” We all have a vague idea that we get who/whom wrong a lot by using who where we should use whom, so we overcorrect and use whom where we should use whom.
Interestingly, it’s precisely in this kind of construction that I see the opposite (of RSA’s example) a lot: where “who” is the correct case for the subject of a clause, and the clause itself is the direct object. Direct object makes people think “whom” — so they get it wrong that way….as in something like this:
“I’ll give the prize to whomever goes first” should be “…whoever goes first,” because whoever is the subject of the clause, which is itself the object of “to.”
(I am old enough to have been taught this stuff. I realize that there are two or three generations of school children behind me who weren’t.)
(I gave up on putting quotation marks everywhere. Any halfway competent copy editor would have a field day. But it is a blog comment….)
@Amir Khalid: I agree. When I edit (which I do a lot), I leave whom as who and whomever as whoever depending on context.
@different-church-lady: I do. :-) (Or should I say “Me do”?)
As for the original McArdle trigger for this thread, people correcting other people can be madly annoying, and I’ve learned the hard way to do it with care, or not at all. But condescendingly and sanctimoniously correcting people when you’re wrong is in a whole other category of assholishness.
ETA: I’d rather be called a maven than an Nazi, but I do have mixed feelings about associating myself with William Safire….. Now for some caffeine to start the day properly.
Major Major Major Major
@jacy: I agree that it indicates a major personality flaw–the whole “let’s just walk this back until I’m right” thing–but it’s not uncommon, especially in natural conversations, and doubly so on Twitter.
It’s a Twitter exchange. This isn’t a papal encyclical.
RSA
@JanieM: Thanks for your analysis!
This was exactly my point of confusion. It’s an unusual feeling for me not to be able to trust my ear on correctness.
Major Major Major Major
@JanieM:
‘Whoever’ is the indirect object. We don’t have a dative, so it defaults back to the nominative ‘who’. Or does that take whom? I can’t remember. But it’s the indirect object.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Very true. But printing also shaped language. Writers began thinking more about how words should be spelled, and what the words meant. But even with the trend towards standardized spelling, accents and regional dialects were still maintained.
JanieM
@Major Major Major Major: “Whoever” is not the indirect object. The whole clause “whoever goes first” is the direct object, and “whoever” is the subject of that clause, thus nominative. What might be dative in another language doesn’t “default” to the nominative in any analysis I’ve ever seen.
cmorenc
Whomever is on first, what’s on second….I don’t know.
Major Major Major Major
@JanieM: Ah, you’re right. The entire noun phrase is the indirect object.
As for whether it should be whoever or whomever as a result, the Google says both, and I’m a descriptivist ?
JanieM
“The whole clause ‘whoever goes first’ is the direct object” — s/b “indirect object” — as MMMM deciphered.
I’m a hybrid of de- and pre-. I do a lot of editing in contexts where the writing shouldn’t sound amateurish, and I have enough OCD tendencies to want things to be “correct” and tidy. But I’ve also studied enough linguistics, and I love language enough, to marvel at language as a living, changing thing.
In my personal life I’m militantly de-. But that’s a whole nother story. ;-)
JanieM
@jeffreyw:
I’m starting a collection of grammar and usage preferences. My sister’s corpse will be cooling before she ever considers using “invite” for “invitation.” That doesn’t bother me at all, but her use, which seems to be completely standard in the business world now, of “the below report” drives me out of my freakin’ mind.
Also, why does everyone have to “utilize” everything these days? What ever happened to the perfectly nice little word “use”? Why can’t we just “help” someone, instead of always having to “assist” them?
Harrumph. I can’t wait to retire and be done with business-ese forever.
eyelessgame
Okay, folks. Truth bomb coming. Gogol’s Wife is only sort of wrong. Let’s first remove all the elision (and the ‘ever’ stylism). Write the complete sentence answer, formally, with both definite and indefinite pronouns.
He who is to blame for Dallas is him whom you already disliked.
Remember your Grammar Nazi lessons back in grade school, where you hated “answer with a complete sentence” because it meant you had to restate the question as part of the answer? Yeah, it’s like that.
Now put the “-ever” back in and take out the definite pronouns:
Whoever is to blame for Dallas is whomever you already disliked.
So if you’re going to elide part of that answer to produce a sentence fragment, you would be just as incorrect (sentence fragments are not proper grammar) to remove the second through eighth words as you would to remove the first through seventh.
Consider “Who is to blame?” “He is. People dislike him.”
Restate:
“Who is to blame?” “He is. Him, whom people dislike.”
You could shorten that – “Who is to blame?” “He is.” That’s kinda what gogol’s wife is trying to do.
But it’s awkward grammar, because the *real real* correct grammar is not to put the same person into the object of the answer who is being used in the subject. That’s what passive voice is for.
“Who is to blame?” “Whoever is already disliked by people.”
But you don’t use passive voice in a headline. Did I say awkward? Yeah. Well. Sentence fragments. Good device. Will use more.
Jennifer
@Major Major Major Major: Actually, I think you are right here. From what I can tell, the correct usage is complicated by our tendency to drop relative pronouns and leave them implied. Therefore, the “complete” sentence would be “I’ll give the prize to whomever [who] goes first,” where “whomever” is the object and “[who] goes first” is modifying the object. However, nobody actually writes/says the “who” anymore because it looks and sounds too weird.
Regarding Cilizza’s headline, McMeghan is actually right, but she is an asshat who was ready to call out but unprepared to defend it. And it doesn’t matter anyway because English is a delightful dumpster fire of a language.
p.a.
re: KJV Bible, God’s Secretaries gets good reviews.
Peter
@Another Holocene Human: That was such an unforced error on Whedon’s part. It’s not hard to see what he actually meant by it, but…geeze, man, phrasing!
Origuy
Linguist now think that English lost its case system between the Conquest and Chaucer, as it became creolized with Danish. While the elites were talking and writing in French and Latin, the common people were a mix of English and Danish speakers. Very similar in vocabulary, they communicated by simplifying the grammar. No one was writing things down in this new language, so we don’t know how it evolved. Scots took a similar path, but had fewer Normans and Saxons and more Celts and Angles.
Bruce Webb
@gogol’s wife: “The pronoun is standing in for “Who’s to blame?” So it should be “Whoever,” not “whomever.”
Sorry no. Answer the question “Who’s to blame?” Correct answers are “Him” “Her” “Me” “Them” Accusatives. Incorrect answers are “He” “She” “I” “They”. Because the question as phrased assumes the object of ‘blame’. Now it turns out that equally good answers are “He is to blame” “She is to blame” “I am to blame” and “They are to blame”. Because you can see the question as being a reflexive, something made more explicit in romance languages. “Je me brosse mes dents” (if they are in your head) “Je brosse mes dents” (if they are dentures in your hand).
This is why we call her McMegan McAddled, her brain isn’t fried to a crisp. On the other hand she doesn’t keep its yolk and egg white perfectly separated.
Bruce Webb
Okay correct French usage is “je me brosse les dents” as opposed to “je brosse mes dents”. Bad Bruce. As pointed out above if you have to be a tight ass prescriptivist at least get it right. Or be prepared to correct and apologize.
I for one am sorry.
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: Okay, now you’ve done it. That can’t possibly be right. Indirect objects take accusative case in English.
Another Holocene Human
@Peter: I know! And it’s personal because I missed that movie in theaters because my wife was dithering over whether to see it — because of that very scene. Dumb stupid splosions movies by definition should be seen on big screen rather than an home. I am an unhappy customer now. Try harder, Whedon, yeesh.
Betsy
@Major Major Major Major: I heard the construction “has holpen” in ordinary vernacular speech just a few years ago. What a treat.
But then, I pronounce the “h” in “which.”
EBT
Gotta say. Underwhelmed by whining over word form usage.
Elliott
Actually, I think she’s right. The headline does not ask “Who to Blame?” in which case, it would have read “Whom to blame for Dallas Shooting? Whomever you dislike.” It asked “Who is to Blame?” so the answer would have the party to blame as the subject, not the object. Who is to blame? Whoever you dislike is to blame. Whom shall we blame? We shall blame whomever we dislike.
gogol's wife
@Elliott:
Exactly.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Could be worse. Could be German.
Suddenly, the following quotes come to mind:
Just saying, it could be worse. It could be a lot worse…
Pogonip
@BC in Illinois: I am properly chastened.
(I haven’t seen a King James in YEARS; we have my grandfather’s Masonic King James but the print is too small for my aging eyes. I myself use a Douay descendant on Kindle and then we have a student’s heavily footnoted and annotated Douay descendant, useful for questions like “Why does it warn about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children?” and “What in the world was Ezekiel smoking, and can I get some?”)
Ian
@chopper:
Wouldn’t a blender overwhip a bechamel sauce? Your cream would get destroyed well before the cheese was soft enough to mix in proprerly.
Bob2
@Ian:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-03-12/your-kitchen-needs-a-1-400-thermomix
Msb
Thanks to all for the refreshing grammar debate. I’m with JanieM, BC and sigaba.
“God’s secretaries” is excellent, as is a play on the subject called “Written on the heart” by David Edgar, in which Tyndale says: ” For we write not a dead law with ink and parchment but a living law, which only love and mercy understand. And he that has not that written on his heart, shall never understand it; no, though all the Angels were to teach him.”
hugely
@Jennifer:
QFT!
hugely
@Betsy: just like cool wHip…
sm*t cl*de
There is much more Meganism in the whole conversation. She goes on to accuse people of lying if they claim to remain grammatically correct in cases where she doesn’t:
Not realising that she is addressing a
pedantGerman.Then we have the equally-assertive
Also :
— a glorious specimen of preeningly more-pedantic-than-thou hyper-correction which contradicts the unimpeachable authority of Leonard Cohen lyrics. Again, she deleted it (because “pretending it never happened” is easier than “admitting error”), but it is recorded as a LGM comment.
How is she going to learn and grow from failures if she denies their very existence?